The world we currently live in has not been supportive nor accepting of women who speak up. We’re taught to be silent, to be smaller, to occupy less space. For myself, as a child, I was told not to do things because they weren’t “ladylike.” As an adult this means that I do not know how to change a tire on my car (I’m working on changing that).

The poem “Shrinking Women” by Lily Myers brights to the forefront the difference in the way we raise our daughters versus our sons.