It's fascinating to 'join the dots'. Virginia lived from 1882 - 1941 - her death during the 2nd World War, during which I was born. So it really isn't all that long ago and yet how different it is for women today.
Clara
R wrote
You asked me if I enjoy reading A Room of One's Own. Well, I've been reading and rereading it for years now. It was written in a very different time by a brilliant author who 11 years later took her own life by drowning. The book is actually a series of lectures on Women and Fiction. Her basic conclusion is that before Jane Austen and Emily Bronte, there were no women writers because women were kept in servitude and poverty. All that we know about women was written by men; and what they wrote about them was completely different than how they treated them. She opens with the premise that in order to write, a woman needs a room of her own and money that she does not have to work for. She is not really championing the common woman, but rather women of genius. She gives us a fictional account of Shakesphere's sister who was equally as brilliant but not allowed to write because she was a woman. Ironically she takes her own life because she cannot write. A Room of One's Own has become a favorite of feminists, though I doubt that is what Virgina Woolf had in mind when she wrote it. For me, I find her discussions o
f women in history interesting.
You asked me if I enjoy reading A Room of One's Own. Well, I've been reading and rereading it for years now. It was written in a very different time by a brilliant author who 11 years later took her own life by drowning. The book is actually a series of lectures on Women and Fiction. Her basic conclusion is that before Jane Austen and Emily Bronte, there were no women writers because women were kept in servitude and poverty. All that we know about women was written by men; and what they wrote about them was completely different than how they treated them. She opens with the premise that in order to write, a woman needs a room of her own and money that she does not have to work for. She is not really championing the common woman, but rather women of genius. She gives us a fictional account of Shakesphere's sister who was equally as brilliant but not allowed to write because she was a woman. Ironically she takes her own life because she cannot write. A Room of One's Own has become a favorite of feminists, though I doubt that is what Virgina Woolf had in mind when she wrote it. For me, I find her discussions o
f women in history interesting. Perhaps the title is the most important. I think women should all have a room of their own, a space they create in which they can be creative and independent.
Click on 'comment' at bottom of page to have your say or email clara@babyboomerconnections.com.au
Click on 'comment' at bottom of page to have your say or email clara@babyboomerconnections.com.au
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