, stepped beyond the government and confines
             of the household" (Phillippy). Indeed, the poem expresses discontent with
             the male dominance of the world, it is a reflection of Whitney's personal
             experience as a maid. This experience was not isolated, as Phillippy
             explains--in fact many women in the sixteenth century were migrant workers.
             The common practice of sending children and young adults of all
             social ranks into service in another's household exposes a cluster of
             attitudes about and advice on the status of women within, outside,
             and marginal to the household. The complexities of Whitney's self-
             portrait in her works and her treatment of women in the home (as
             wives or servants) and outside the home (as uprooted servants,
             abandoned lovers or writers) express these attitudes. She adopts a
             voice rooted in a firsthand knowledge of the vicissitudes of a
             woman's experience--both sexual and commercial--when she moves beyond
             the protection of the household. (Phillippy)
             ...