[DanaC]

I should say, by the way, when I talk about advice literature for women having a particular focus and being informed by a particular view of women, I mean advice written by both men and women.

I am not familiar with this prayer, but I would imagine it was written by a nun for other nuns. It feels like something written by a woman for women - the tone is very in keeping with a lot of the early-modern, female-authored advice books. It doesn't have that stentorian edge that you often get when it was written by a male author (with some exceptions) for female consumptionand. Also the intimacy of a sense of shared experience that you get with closed or occupational communities - reminds me a little of some advice I read,by an NCO for young up and coming corporals to help them in their careers, about the pitfalls of rank, especially for the older sergeants. Much longer and very different, but there's a sense of shared experience specific to the writer and reader.