Women

Walker noted that she composed “Women” for her mother, Minnie Lou Tallulah Grant, who worked as a maid—11 hours a day for $17 a week—to supplement her sharecropper husband Willie Lee’s $300 annual income. Poor circumstances enveloped Walker, her parents, and her seven older siblings, depriving Walker of the proper medical treatment for her damaged eye; she therefore sought solace in nature and writing. In the 1940s South, it was common for young Black children to help their parents in the fields. In fact, a plantation owner actually told Minnie that education for Black children was unnecessary, but Walker’s mother listened to her intuition and supported her children’s education wholeheartedly. When Walker began to develop her academic and literary arts skills at home and in school, her mother encouraged her to aspire to her professional writing goals. When Walker writes, “My mama’s generation” (Line 2) made sacrifices in order “To discover books / Desks / A place for us” (Lines 19-21), she is referring to Minnie Lou’s devotion to her daughter’s education.

In the poem, Walker shows how family lineage can connect with the trajectory of social movements. Rebecca, Walker’s daughter, was born in 1969 right before “Women” was published in 1973; therefore, Walker may have had three generations on her mind when composing the poem. Walker’s own involvement in the second-wave feminist movement paved the way for Rebecca’s strong voice in the third-wave feminism of the 1990s.