H Lawrence's essay "cocksure women and hensure men," he tells us that women should stay home and take care of the family while the husband goes out and supports the family. He noticed in his time, (1920's), women were starting to fall out of that specific lifestyle. Women were becoming independent, opinionated, and entering the work force. Lawrence gives us an idea of how a woman should be in his opinion when he says, "The demure maiden, the demure spouse, the demure mother-this is still the ideal." We notice that Lawrence still believes that women should follow that old standard of a woman, a housewife. She should have kids, cook, clean, be beautiful, and submissive.
Lawrence has two ideas of how women are: hensure or cocksure. The hensure woman is the demure housewife. She is agreeable and loving. She has children and happily raises them and that is her career. Her family is her job and her fulfillment in life. The cocksure woman doesn"t have children. Instead she has a job and an opinion. Lawrence gives us his impression of a cocksure woman when he says, "A really up-to-date woman is a cocksure woman. She doesn"t have a doubt or a qualm. She is the modern type." Lawrence tells us that a cocksure woman is very confident and is sure of herself. Lawrence believes that really a hensure woman is surer of herself than a cocksure woman is. "In her own dim surety, the hen is really much surer than the cock, in a different way. She marches off to lay her eggs, she secures obstinately the nest she wants, she lays her eggs at last, then steps forth again with prancing confidence, and gives the most assured of all sounds, the hens cackle of a bird who had laid her egg." Lawrence seems to believe that the best thing a woman can do in her life is to have kids. When she does, she is more confident and fulfilled than anyone else, no matter what they are doing. I think every woman is different and some women may feel just as fulfilled in their jobs as other women feel about their children and family.
