A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
I really enjoyed this book as the writing style made me think of Sally, whom I love. There were so many fabulous feminist sentiments held within. The main idea that Woolf explores deeply is that for men to feel comfortable within themselves they need to feel superior, and what better way than to believe that half the population is innately inferior to them?
I would really like to buy my own copy of this book to highlight her wonderful arguments and turn of phrase. She deftly lays out the issue of women and men’s equality and how many men see women being brought up to their level as taking away their rights as a man. I’m not going to try to recreate the argument here, I have never been able to articulate it well and she is a master at it.
Woolf is not above admitting that she has biases and they will affect her writing. “Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them; it is for you to seek out this truth and to decide whether any part of it is worth keeping.” She does not purport to be an oracle speaking on women and fiction. I found her style of writing comfortable and enjoyable. Very stream-of-consciousness, but a consciousness that has been thinking deeply about these issues.
One of the things Woolf pontificates on is how much men have written about women. And how little women have written about everything. I read about a challenge where one would write their assignments at University referring only to books written by women. As much as I would have liked to achieve that for some assignments in my undergrad, I was mostly studying theology and I had to settle for one book written or edited by a woman – even that was often a struggle. I also recently read about Jack Heath who read only women authors for a year.
I was phenommed* to find that this book, which is clearly a seminal feminist work, was not on The List. In fact nothing by Virginia Woolf was on the list. The list has obviously succumbed to the patriarchy and I see it as my solemn duty to recover it. Thus, this review will be posted on the consensus cloud blog, because I will not have dictated to me that this year >75% of the books I read must be by men.
Everyone should read this book.
*it was phenomenal to me
I really enjoyed this book as the writing style made me think of Sally, whom I love. There were so many fabulous feminist sentiments held within. The main idea that Woolf explores deeply is that for men to feel comfortable within themselves they need to feel superior, and what better way than to believe that half the population is innately inferior to them?
I would really like to buy my own copy of this book to highlight her wonderful arguments and turn of phrase. She deftly lays out the issue of women and men’s equality and how many men see women being brought up to their level as taking away their rights as a man. I’m not going to try to recreate the argument here, I have never been able to articulate it well and she is a master at it.
Woolf is not above admitting that she has biases and they will affect her writing. “Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them; it is for you to seek out this truth and to decide whether any part of it is worth keeping.” She does not purport to be an oracle speaking on women and fiction. I found her style of writing comfortable and enjoyable. Very stream-of-consciousness, but a consciousness that has been thinking deeply about these issues.
One of the things Woolf pontificates on is how much men have written about women. And how little women have written about everything. I read about a challenge where one would write their assignments at University referring only to books written by women. As much as I would have liked to achieve that for some assignments in my undergrad, I was mostly studying theology and I had to settle for one book written or edited by a woman – even that was often a struggle. I also recently read about Jack Heath who read only women authors for a year.
I was phenommed* to find that this book, which is clearly a seminal feminist work, was not on The List. In fact nothing by Virginia Woolf was on the list. The list has obviously succumbed to the patriarchy and I see it as my solemn duty to recover it. Thus, this review will be posted on the consensus cloud blog, because I will not have dictated to me that this year >75% of the books I read must be by men.
Everyone should read this book.
*it was phenomenal to me
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