19: who's afraid of virginia woolf?

Are you aware that you are, perhaps, the most discussed animal in the universe?

Published only a decade after English women received the right to vote, Virginia Woolf uses fiction to explore her own experiences and findings. The book is an essay with a fictional narrator, rooted in her own experiences with the book's focus: women and fiction. Woolf argue, in a way only she can, that in order to be a Writer in Society woman must have a room of one's own and 500 pounds of income a year.

It is startling to find how much of the book still rings true–that women struggle to make a place for themselves not only in writing, but in society outside of the home. Without beating the breast of women too fiercely, this argument is woven together with the idea that to live in spiritual harmony, man and woman must be codependant.

This is not to say that man and woman must be married. Woolf pauses for a moment to reflect on the ability of women (in fiction and outside of it) can like women–both Platonic and intimate love, and neither mutually exclusive. This is to say that the minds of men and women come together like those of all species–to create a balance that furthers the next generation.

To make this equal, Woolf argues, women must have a way in the world. Because, as she says,

Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation, I thought, opening the door.

To make her argument, Woolf relies on the world of academia with subtle imagery and language, to show how strongly women have been excluded (protected, one may try to say?) from academia, and with it business, politics and financial independence.

From the start, the language of the book took me. I couldn't stop myself. I sat on Joe's couch reading the book aloud. The book flows and moves seamlessly, and I envy not only her ability to put the thoughts to paper but to make a strong case–through her ability and style–for Woman's ability to hold their own in literature.

Enjoy it. Don't fight it. Read it aloud. Read it like you're giving a lecture. Like you're the most passionate feminist, the most passionate writer, in existence. You'll find that it's not struggle to believe yourself.