Compare Contrast 2 Poems A Working Girl Can't Win and Advice to my Son - Essay Example

Peter Meinke try to tell in their poems based on their own experiences in “A Working Girl Can’t Win” and “Advice to my son”, respectively. More or less, both of them share their perceptions of people and life as assumed unanimously. The only difference in their poems is that Meinke takes a positive approach to life and advice his son to survive the harsh realities of life and live a better one, whereas Garrison discusses about the harsh stereotypes associated with women in their workplaces and daily lives.

With the use of diction and imagery, these poems bring forth the harsh realities in life. Garrison emphasizes on the victimized state of women at the hands of the patriarchal and male dominated society. This all point towards gender discriminations which does not allow women to have the stability and sense of belonging in a workplace compared to their male counterpart. Thus, in order to prove their capabilities and intellect, they have to juggle with different identities: a work self and a feminine self (Hippel et al. 156). As these stereotypes prevail, Garrison, by using diction and vivid imagination, narrates the ubiquitous undeserving labels associated with women in workplace and elsewhere.

Their chastity is libelled by questioning their status as “pundits or a slut” (Garrison). . These men then criticise them for being too soft or strident, too aggressive or not enough. Normally, a few of these attributes portray a confident persona in men, however, this all appears abrasive in women (Rhodes 6). These attributes leave a woman battling for her status alone. But what these women forget is that in struggling they lose themselves forgetting how to live a normal life. Because they are involved in removing the threatening views from the society, their family is the only one who cherishes their endeavours and grieves their absence.

The reason behind this is that women are considered as possession by men. They are to yield to men and not vice versa. But what everyone seems to forget is that women used to have a higher status than men in late II century BC (Campbell 6). Matriarchy was indeed very powerful until it crumbled. Where a struggling woman is seen undergoing transgression, Meinke, rather than bringing another reality upfront, shows an optimistic outlook towards harsh realities in life. The narrator of the poem advices his son to cherish life no matter the melancholy and gloominess it brings along.

In his point of view, hardships are a fact of life and can not be denied. Not only will they come, but there also will be a day when the harbinger of death will arrive with “the shattered windshield and bursting shell” (Meinke) putting an end to everything earthly. Life is full of miseries and burdens which each individual has to deal with on their own. But as human beings are weak in nature, they crave for more and more ignoring what they already have as Rev. Leroy Allison said, “We spend too much time living in the ‘what if’ and