Poem Analysis of It's A Woman's World by Eavan Boland

In the poem “It’s a woman’s world” by Eavan Boland, the speaker indulges in the matters of women’s lives. It is a dystopian poem where women’s lives don’t get better. Boland doesn’t give us hope that things, traditions will change but presents the life of women, all women she says, in an oversimplifying way that almost irritates the reader. It makes one think: “Is this it?” Her straightforward, or even blunt, way of conveying life with little hints of rioting thoughts of hers and the many contrasting imagery makes us feel that there’s something wrong with this set and firm order of life.

The speaker of the poem doesn’t have an open identity initially, but we infer from the title and the constant use of the pronouns “we” and “our” that the speaker is a woman talking on behalf of every woman. Till the end of 4th stanza, the speaker tells that since kitchenware has been a thing, “since a wheel first whetted a knife,” women have lived the same life: in the kitchen, concerned only with daily chores. Boland intensifies this with the hyperbole in the second stanza. She says women’s lives are so monotonous that even the milestones of women are when they forget the bread at the cashier or when they leave the laundry wet. 

After the 4th stanza, the speaker goes on to talk about how people in women’s lives influence them. Women are always told you can’t be a “star-gazer” or a “fire eater.” Basically they’re told: you’re not brave, you’re not smart, you don’t have any other way of life. The speaker then reveals that women have taken those words by heart. She implicitly accuses women of accepting the words so willingly and accuses men of using this acceptance as an alibi for not involving women in what’s going on around them. She implies that such huge events as the beheading of a king should be of interest and not being perceived as “brave enough” should not be used as an excuse. She basically argues that women have a head and brains. Again, use of contrast is an important element: beheading of a king and gristing bread. 

For most of the poem, we're almost in the head of the speaker but at the 12th stanza, we're suddenly looking at a street with our speaker. We look at the street and  understand from the lines ”that woman there/ craned to mystery…” that we see the archetype of what our speaker has been talking about: a woman with no life outside her home. This transition helps us solidify our ideas and give us hope that she will provide us with an example of a woman who has defied the tags society made women claim. Specifically in the lines “while this one here…”we get so hyped up with the hope of seeing yet another contrast but no. This other person is just like the former. Not a fire-eater. Just a normal person, the speaker’s “neighbor” coming home. This is what makes the poem a dystopian one.

Society has made women accept a world where she’s not somebody with a function outside of the house and many keep living their lives according to this doctrine. This poem aims to make women realize they are in control of their lives and can change it and tells everything in a matter-of-fact way that makes women take a birds-eye view of their own lives and possibly make them realize something is wrong. Women are much more than what they have been told they are.