“The Rights of Woman” by Anna Laetitia Barbauld was written in the proto-feminist time period, which was a time period when feminist ideas were arising but the feminist movement had not been established yet. This poem encourages women to stand up for their rights and not only be seen as equal to men, but rather superior. Barbauld makes an implicit extended metaphor comparing the fight for rights to a battle for an empire writing, “Thy rights are empire” (line 13). If women win the battle and conquer the empire, it really means that women have finally won their rights. She tells women to fight in “panoply,” or armor, and to “…collect thy store / Of bright artillery glancing from afar,” or gather their weapons for battle, further supporting the metaphor to a battle (lines 9-10). Each stanza follows a rhyme scheme pattern of abab cdcd efef and so on, with each line written in iambic pentameter. The pattern of unstressed/stressed syllables creates a rhythmic beat emphasizes the idea of going into battle because it mimics the marching footsteps of soldiers.
In line 1, she references women as “injured” women to express that women have been abused by men and stripped of their rights which has caused them to suffer. “Make treacherous Man thy subject, not thy friend” (line 19). Through this line, she portrays the idea of revenge and that the goal of the battle is not to win equal rights with men, but rather win the rights of men for themselves. By winning, she will make “Man thy subject” by controlling them and making them experience what it is like to feel worthless and be treated poorly by the other gender. The last three stanzas warn women that victory is not permanent and they should continue to fight for their rights so that men can never take it from them again. In line 32, she cautions, “…separate rights are lost in mutual love.” In the 1700s, a married woman was not allowed to do many things like own land, continue to be educated, control money and earn decent wages, etc. Men were even allowed to beat their wives if they felt it was necessary.1 She wants to reiterate that these rights should remain regardless of a woman’s situation.
1 https://sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/social-and-family-life-in-the-late17th-early-18th-centuries/#:~:text=Women%20could%20not%20vote%2C%20own,cruel%20and%20humiliating%20public%20penalties.
I like your interpretation, though I took this poem a little differently. The last couple stanzas, to me, seemed to walk back a lot of her claims, claiming that these efforts would be fruitless eventually. I think that the poem being a response to Wollstonecraft’s Vindication on the Rights of Women is also important here: the poem seems to offer a prediction as to what the world would look like if Wollstonecraft’s ideas were taken seriously. In that sense, the poem then becomes a satirical response, and the last couple of stanzas more of a direct rebuttal.