Women and Perspectives on Love

Women and Perspectives on Love
The persona in the first poem (“I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed” by Edna St. Vincent Millay), is cynical about love, she doubts the possibility of a man and a woman to meet their emotional commitment. The terse conclusion, “I find this frenzy insufficient reason I for conversation when we meet again,” (Millay) – epitomizes a woman in love but refuses to conform to the ordinary society’s dictates. In a scenario when lust empowers better judgment of a woman, it is perceived to be something quite new but normal when it happens to a man. She employs a sarcastic tone in the first stanza of the poem when she states that being a woman by birth and not by choice troubles her. The society expects a woman to live up the standards of a lady despite the fact she is known to be fragile and emotional. In the last two stanzas, the speaker hits the nail on the head by stating that their romantic tryst was nothing but a ‘one-night stand’ and not a good reason to engage in any intimacy again.
The speaker in the second poem “Girl Powdering Her Neck” (Cathy Song) shows how women do ridiculous things to be attractive. She has an idea that people believe in external beauty of a woman and outward attractiveness despite the fact that beauty is too hard.’ She says it odds with pure serenity’ – shows that the outward beauty does not necessarily reflect the actual nature of a woman’s personality. She satirizes the lady who spends her time in the mirror in an attempt to achieve attractiveness.

‘The mouth parts as if desiring to disturb the placid plum face, shows discomfort by the time spend on her beauty, but she must do so because the society has set that standard to define beauty and whether she feels otherwise she cannot say a word because that’s what beauty is the perspective of the community.