Shrinking Women Poem Analysis

The slam poem I chose is Shrinking Women by Lily Myers. This is a poem about the importance of teaching positive family values, self-worth, and the result of societal pressure on women. It is an introduction into the narrator’s life, and the generations of women who are trained to be quiet and not take up room. It spreads awareness about these issues, and hopefully inspires people to think differently or make a change. This poem weaves in its message with the narrator’s own experiences with her family. It is describes how she, her mother, and her mother’s mother seem to shrink, while the men grow, using size as a metaphor for power. She is unintentionally taught by example to take up as little space as possible, physically and figuratively. …show more content…
Children are still picking up bad habits from their parents, unintentionally or not, and women are continuing to shrink. This isn’t something that will change immediately, and it’s not as simple as creating new laws or policies. People need to develop a different mentality on the proper ways for women to behave and realize: there is no proper way. To ensure that this isn’t overlooked, there needs to be a spread of awareness on these issues, and this slam poem is a good way of doing it. I also notice people around me, and myself affected by this mindset. An example is when girls, including me, are not assertive in class or conversation because we don’t want to seem rude. However, in reality, it is a perfectly okay thing to do, and the knowledge that it makes us seem annoying is only caused by society’s accidental hive mind (even though most people would support women not needing to meet standards, actions/habits say otherwise, causing us to all subconsciously develop ways to conform to an idea that seemingly doesn’t exist anymore; basically, if you asked someone, they can say that they do not think assertive women are annoying/bossy, but if actually faced with one, they might subconsciously reject them for reasons they don't even realize) where it seems more acceptable to be quiet. Since generally everyone is a part of society, girls might think that it’s normal to be docile and let boys take up more space. These behavior makes them have less self-worth and ‘power’ than boys, even though they don't know it, and never knew any different. Parents also promote these beliefs by saying things like: “don’t be such a girl” to a crying boy. Mothers with daughters can tell them that they don’t need to be good at ‘difficult’ subjects such as math and science. This can prevent them from reaching their full potential. I don’t think society, or (most) individual people in society are causing women to shrink on purpose,