Comparing A Room Of One's Own By Virginia Woolf And Homemade Education

I decided to evaluate an excerpt from the book The Presence of Others. This selection, entitled Keeping Close to Home: Class and Education, was written by Bell Hooks, and is taken from her book Talking Back, published in 1989. Hooks is the author of many other volumes, including Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (1994), and Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work (1999). According to the co-author of The Presence of Others, Andrea A. Lunsford, Hooks is comparable to fellow featured authors Adrienne Rich and Mike Rose for their similar views on education being "the practice of exclusion" (93).

Focusing on the lives of women, they were not allowed such freedoms like we have in modern times. Education is something that these women were not granted a lot of access to. This is pointed out in the very beginning of the novel. One of the characters mentions, “You cannot read, Anna.” (Brooks, 1). Women were expected to be housewives, they would not need that much education to do that. It seems, though, that women in the book were able to learn a lot through experiences. They had no need of a proper education to be able to survive day to day. Going off the information I have learned and the information presented in this book, I believe that the author was able to properly portray the life of women in the seventeenth century.

Women had very few of the opportunities men did. Since were expected to marry early, remain committed to one man and that man only, and cook and clean and take care of the kids, and portray herself as the subservient housewife, there was hardly time for school or to get an education for herself. That being said. It made it hard for women in the late eighteenth century to provide for herself and make money for herself if not born into a wealthy family. The majority of the time women were practically forced to marry into wealth if they themselves did not have the money to sustain life for themselves. Eliza Wharton, for example who is the main character unknowingly challenges the limitations in the patriarchal society which she is brought up into. Although this young woman has questionable morals throughout all of the story, she is the epitome of a feministic (bad ass) character to men

Growing up in Harlem in 1972 is not easy as an African American, not to mention a woman as well. “The Lesson” is a short story written by Toni Bambara that retells her adolescent years of growing up in Harlem and spending her summers learning from Miss Moore, the only woman to attend college in the neighborhood. For that reason, the parents of the children see it fit for Miss Moore to watch over them during the summer. She teaches them academics along with takes them on educational trips to museums. In this particular lesson, she takes them to F.A.O Schwarz, which is a very high-end toy shop, to teach them a lesson they will not learn inside the classroom. Once Sylvia realizes the social injustices in society after Miss Moore’s lesson, she

The education women received during the romantic era was very different to today. Professor of English at the Arizona State University and author of six books on literature by women, Devoney Looser, explains how women during this time received very little schooling, were taught different materials than men, and were taught in schools that were specifically for their gender (Looser 1). In these schools, they were not taught politics, economics, or classical studies as those topics were specifically for men; instead they would learn art, music, and sewing. Upper-class women and middle-class women were taught how to be proper wives and mothers by learning how to do domestic tasks, such as sewing and needlework (Looser 1). Women who were not

All the authors were talking about a common problem, which is racism. Each of the writer’s had his own unique way of showing how people got abused just by their sex or by their skin color. Woolf talked about racism against females in the 1700’s by telling her readers to imagine Shakespeare’s sister at that time. Back in that time, females were prohibited to be creative what so ever, and their jobs were to raise kids and care for their husbands only. When Women disobeyed that they were beaten and considered as shameful and that they are bringing disgrace to their families. When women tried to be like men, and write books or be actresses like Shakespeare’s sisters, they ended up facing problems emotionally and psychologically. Furthermore, most

In introduction, Mary Wollstonecraft wastes no time to illustrate and sadness and disappointment with their education system and their educators. Wollstonecraft believes that men see women as wives and mistresses and not “human creatures” and that the government observes the female as inferior to male. To Wollstonecraft, the instruction of women to be beautiful and yielding to men in search for marriage leaves their minds and usefulness sacrificed. Wollstonecraft’s writings are a clear and direct cry to women to have and explore their desires as well as curiosity, and in that regards, intelligence and human character. Wollstonecraft contends that a more educated woman would bring about a happier husband, child, and society. A quote that summarizes

Education was not equal between the sexes and neither between the classes. Gentlemen were educated at home until they were old enough to attend well-known or lesser schools. A lady’s schooling was

Woolf believes that women are different from men both in their social history as well as inherently, and that each of these differences has had important effects on the development of women 's writing.

In Jane Austen’s day, there was no state-organised education system. There were church-run day schools in the best of cases for the lower class, but the genteel children of Austen’s novels were given lessons at home by their parents or by tutors, or they were boarders or in local schools to which girls were not admitted. Parents had the choice for their children’s education and upbringing, but the choice depended mainly on their financial resources. Women were not allowed to attend public schools and since they did not usually make a career (the exception being if they were obliged because of their financial situation to become a governess), parents (and society) saw no need for them to receive higher education. “Female education” referred to women receiving a practical (and religious) training for their future domestic roles. Domestic training would be sewing or needlework,

Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen lived in an era when society dictated the roles of men and women. During the 19th century, marriage between a Middle Class, educated male, and a pretty uneducated female was common, often leading to the idea that men were more intelligent than women. Neither Austen nor Wollstonecraft believed women were less capable of achieving an education. Wollstonecraft and Austen perpetuated the idea of education in parallel ways. Their writings never indicating one being familiar with the other, but their published works often foreshadowed a growing opinion favoring female education and rights. In fact, both authors acknowledged the notion of women being trapped into seeking meal-ticket husbands by societal standards, which did not afford women the luxury of an education. After researching the political opinions of Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft, it is evident that both women believed females had the capacity to care for themselves, as men were able, yet both women remain

Due to their lack of educational opportunities during the Victorian era, women were more educated in domesticity, while men were taught in various subjects. Wollstonecraft describes the education that women receive to be “a disorderly kind of education” (161). If women were given equal educational opportunities as men, then it would allow them to become more empowered. Wollstonecraft states, “Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience…” (163). Meaning that by providing women with a educational equivalent to men, then it would put an end to women having to be reliant on men and be able to independent. Therefore, women will not have to feel inferior to their male counterparts. She encourages women to become more empowered and challenge the gender constructs of society.

Virginia Woolf was a British author who was a well educated, wealthy, essayist, and publisher, which was not common for her time. Woolf obviously did not

In Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, she addressed many issues for women regarding civil rights and the expectations that were held for them at the time. “…men have… been led by viewing education in a false light; not considering it as the first step to form a being advancing gradually towards perfection; but only as a preparation for life.” (Wollstonecraft 58). Essentially, Wollstonecraft implied that men interpreted education only as a means of learning how to live life. In accordance with such an interpretation, women were only allowed to learn how to be wives and mothers. Wollstonecraft also stated her own perspective as to what education needed to be perceived as in contrast to what it was believed to be. After the large uproar that A Vindication of the Rights of Woman created, Wollstonecraft’s writing inspired many other female writers to join the fray.

Woolf explains the difference in success between man and woman in two parts. She first explains that the values of women differ very often from the values of men, and goes on to say that in any case it is the masculine values that prevail and feminine values are devalued. (Woolf, 1929, 74) Masculine values soon became a part of society; as males were the only voices heard. Novels discussed males during the time of war, and spoke of their discoveries and contributions to the world. Since women’s voices were silenced by the need to mimic males, society never got to see the woman’s perspectives on matters. Consequently women altered their own values in “deference to the opinion of others.” (Woolf, 1929, 75) For Woolf there is a uniquely female way of writing—a woman's sentence. This is one of Woolf's most provocative claims. She argues that women see and feel and value differently than men, and that because of this they must also write differently. She praises Jane Austen, who had "devised a perfectly natural, shapely sentence proper for her own use and never departed from it." (Woolf, 1929,