The hesitancy is in the detail, not the principal. There has been no resistance to the principal of women playing in the Open if they are qualified for it. We are not dragging our feet. It's just that we never had cause to think about it before.
Besides the actual reading in class of many poems, I would suggest you do two things: first, while teaching everything you can and keeping free of it, teach that poetry is a mode of discourse that differs from logical exposition.