Explore "WOMEN OF TO-DAY (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
You women of today who fear so much / The women of the future, showing how / The dangers of her course are such and such -- / What are you now?
Mothers and Wives and Housekeepers, forsooth! / Great names, you cry, full scope to rule and please, / Room for wise age and energetic youth! -- / But are you these?
Housekeepers? Do you then, like those of yore, / Keep house with power and pride, with grace and ease? / No, you keep servants only! What is more -- / You don't keep these!
Wives, say you? Wives! Blessed indeed are they / Who hold of love the everlasting keys, / Keeping their husbands' hearts! Alas the day! / You don't keep these!
And mothers? Pitying Heaven! Mark the cry / From cradle death-beds! Mothers on their knees! / Why, half the children born, as children, die! / You don't keep these!
And still the wailing babies come and go, / And homes are waste, and husbands' hearts fly far; / There is no hope until you dare to know / The thing you are!