Although Whitney sometimes does write about the male experience, much of her poetry is concerned with the female experience of living in the 1500s, which is vastly different. The offering of this female perspective is significant, as Isabella Whitney is widely thought to be the first professional female poet. Naturally, her poetry is among some of the earliest insights we can get about the female experience of history in poetic form.
Although Whitney does not often talk about female issues in her poetry, we can read between the lines. For example, in her poem To her Sister Mistress A. B, she seems to create a distinction between the life of a housewife and the life of a writer, as if these two things are mutually exclusive. As such, we get the impression that Whitney had a choice between being a writer and being a wife, and that being the latter would hinder her abilities in the first. This is interesting, as readers can understand the struggles a female writer might have faced in the 1500s. Indeed, Isabella Whitney seems to have been going against the norm, as the vast majority of women then would have settled down and had children. Later, Whitney did have children of her own, but it is interesting that she wrote about her experiences as a single woman.
Through Whitney's poetry, we can understand aspects of her life. For example, we understand that she was largely an independent woman, who wrote about her experiences as such. We can also infer that she adored London, as the city is often the subject of her writing. Whitney's ability to portray the vivid sounds, sights, and smells of London in the 1500s has been praised by critics and gives us a real insight into what it might have been like to live then.
