When Anne Bradstreet wrote during the 17th century, it was necessary that she frame her work carefully. For women writers at the time, it was nearly impossible to write at all and absolutely impossible to write freely. Not only did Anne Bradstreet have to preface works with disparging statements dismissing her work as trivial, womanly writing, but she also had to pick her subject matter cautiously and without the freedom of men. Writing about politics would have been a masculine field and reflected poorly on the character of a woman in the opinion of soceity. Therefore, it was necessary for Bradstreet and others to restrict themselves to "domestic" topics, such as family and relicious worship. In Bradstreet's early works, she focused on history and much of her work borrowed from the styles of other writers. However, with maturity she gained an individual style. She maintained a her reputation as a respectable woman. She never becoming aradical pollitcal writer because this would have lost her any sort of opportunity she did have to have a voice. What she did develop, though, was no less important. In her unique style, she authored poems that reflected her story of life in New England as a puritan woman. In a soceity that limited women's public speaking, this was a critical point in women's liberation. Bradstreet was able to express her education and intelligence without allowing people to criticize her for immorality or pride.

As the women's suffrage movement began to develop in the 19th century a strong and vocal anti-suffrage ment also emerged. One influential arguement used by anti-suffragists was that liberarted, voting women went hand in hand with unfeminine, vulgar, sinful women. Proper women, they argued, wouldn't want to be involved with the harsh, masculine world of politics. The only women contributing to politics would be the depraved--those who drank whisky and committed adultry. Such an arguement would have had a powerful effect on a society built around Puritan ideals of woman hood such as submissiveness, humility, piousnesss, and chastity. Furthermore, many women might have been frightened away from participating in the movement for fear of aligning themselves with women of poor reputation. Therefore, it was critical thatwomen suffragists presented themselves as respectable and socially acceptable. Not only did they have to convince the American people and government that it was their right to vote based on the philosophy of liberty, they also had to demonstrate that they were not morally corrupt, being upheld to much higher standards than men. If something was considered a sin when carried out by a man, such as adultry, it was vastly more repulsive when done by a woman. As women's rights literature both developed and continued, fighting the fight of morality  was just one more battle in a difficult war.

As women began to write, they were greatly limited in their expression. There were many prexisting ideas about women's intellectual strength and place in societythat designated what topics they could write about. What women needed to change was there pollitcal place, but politics were not part of the sphere they were allowed to write about. While the spheres existed, they separated women from men in ways that  As result, women were forced to convert the fields they could have into tools they worked through to communicate their point. Sentimental novels and domestic fiction could be used to portray women's suffering under while portraying heroines who were strong and respectable, Anne Bradstreets religious poetry demonstrated her piousness and motherliness, and many women were able to use their stance as society's moral guardians to become involved in movements like the temperance movement which gave them their early tastes of politics. However, as time went on, it became increasingly necessary to expand the spheres.