Notes 1/29

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf


Why has there been no woman-Shakespeare? Virginia Woolf asks us this same question and she believes she has the answer. Women were not given the same education as men. Women were prepped for the being mothers and wives, not for being professionals. In the medium of creation, women created the home environment, the children, society, etc, and in that sense, these were the only acceptable genres for women for a time. Only men were allowed on stage until 1660 and the Restoration Theatre. Even then, they were considered whores, who only wanted to be around men. They were not taken seriously. Society made writing so indecent for women that they often would burn their works, some of which was later recovered by feminists recovery projects.

Woolf thinks women shouldn't write like women but men also shouldn't write like men. Both sexes should write like intellectuals. Men, feeling insecure due to the women's movement, often will write bad fiction! Both sexes should write like a soul.

Shakespeare was neither a man or a woman but both, in the way that he wrote. That's why he was such a great writer and no one has been able to compare to him; nobody has left their gender identity behind enough to be an intellectual like he has.