Sexism For Women

In the excerpt from A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf argues that women writers face unfair educational, financial and social disadvantages. Throughout the excerpt, she hopes to persuade readers that in a patriarchal society, a woman must have privacy and financial independence in order to fulfill her literary potential. To accomplish this goal, Woolf effectively appeals to logos, pathos and ethos; however, her emphasis on establishing credibility most successfully persuades her readers.

During the Age of Enlightenment in the late eighteenth century, Mary Wollstonecraft presented a radical essay, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, that shed light on the largest, underrepresented groups of the time, women. The essay voiced the inequalities women at the time faced and called upon Wollstonecraft’s audience to invoke a revolution for the rights of women. Through her writing, she presented a compelling argument that slowly allowed women to question their “place” in society and demand change to the British social order. While these changes did not happen quickly, her work sparked the feminist movements through its unique message and called upon women to demand equality through the Match Girls Strike and Women’s Suffrage

Back in the day almost everyone viewed woman to be the person who cleans, cooks, has children, and obeys her husband. Even woman themselves had this view hammered into their minds at such a young age, the views that women are inferior to men. This stigma of woman can be found traced throughout Virginia Woolf’s essay of two meals, a meal for men and a meal for women at a college. She uses numerous composition techniques and effectively disperses them throughout her narrative. By doing so, she accurately demonstrates her views on society’s stigma of a woman's role in an eloquent manner.

She was a mother, a moral and political philosopher, a writer, and a feminist. Mary Wollstonecraft was the ideal image of what represented the push towards modern feminism. Some may even consider her as the founding mother of modern feminism itself. Much of Wollstonecraft’s literature is influenced by her own life experiences. In 1785, Wollstonecraft took on an employment opportunity as a governess. While spending most of her time there, she had a moment of epiphany where she realized that she was not suited for domestic work. Soon after, she returned to London and became a translator and wrote for a well-known publisher and discovered her love of writing. Eventually, years later she was then able to publish her most notable work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is still a very popular book which can be seen as a guide to becoming a better citizen and understanding feminism in a critical context. This essay will argue that Mary Wollstonecraft is still relevant to the feminist cause today as her views portrayed in her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman are still relatable to many of the feminist issues that currently exist around the world. This essay will do so by comparing how her views in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman can still be used as guiding principles to tackle feminist matters.

In Virginia Woolf’s speech “Professions for Women”, it employs various techniques in order to get her argument across. Throughout the speech Virginia Woolf brings forward a problem that is still relevant today: gender inequality. Woolf’s combination brings of extended metaphors, irony, vivid imagery, anaphora and repetition emphasizes her philosophical ideal of supporting gender equality.

Women first gained the right to vote on August 26, 1920 with the 19th amendment was approved, giving women full voting rights. Fortified by the constitutional victory in 1920, the handful of new women in Congress embarked on what would become a century-long journey to broaden women’s role in government. In the intervening years, the drive for more women’s rights encompassed the lives of the next generations of women. Even today, women are still fighting for their rights and stand up against prejudice. On the forefront of this movement are our women congresswomen who speak on behalf of all women. When Hillary Clinton announced her presidential candidacy, controversial questions immediately surfaced about the role of gender in politics. Through Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008 and 2016, media is the principal propagator in showing bias and sexism.

Woolf begins her speech by immediately acknowledging the reasons she was invited to speak for the Society. Through the use of anaphora, she is able to contest that she does, indeed, meet the criteria, as it is true she is an employed woman. However, Woolf shrouds a bit of doubt on her credibility with the addition of the rhetorical question, “but what professional experiences have I had?” (1). Nevertheless, she quickly recovers by stating that though she was a woman pursuing a career in literature, a profession in which “there are fewer experiences for women than any other” (1), she was able to make a name for herself like those who had paved the road before her. Woolf admits that her experience was not as rough as the women who preceded her because they “ma[de] the path smooth, and regulat[ed] [her] steps”. As a result, she had “very few material obstacles in her way” (1). Woolf incorporates the subtle use of a metonym when she states, “no demand was made upon the family purse” (1), in order to establish that her family suffered no economic strife through her writing.

Today the equality between men and woman is closer then it ever has before in history, with women CEO’s and stay at home dads. This happened because of the strong woman in history fighting for the same rights as man, private property, creative freedom, and the power to use their intellect. Virginia Woolf is one of those ladies arguing that, “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." She believes that women are locked in some sort of intellectual prison and not being able to have money or privacy keeps them locked, unable to blossom intellectually.

In Virginia Woolf’s speech “Professions for Women” she uses rhetorical appeal towards women’s abilities to do anything a man can do, she uses an overall good amount of rhetorical devices that help the reader to picture & experience what she’s feeling and wanting us to see.

Throughout the history of the women’s rights initiative, activists have continually struggled to endorse their cause in a inoffensive, non-derogative style. With audiences acclimated to sexist societal norms, these pioneers had to advocate their ideas with tact and caution. If they were too enthusiastic, they were received as radical. Too meak, and none would listen. Finding a balance was imperative to the success of their message. This equilibrium is excellently exemplified in Virginia Woolf’s speech, “Professions for Women,” which was delivered to the Women’s Service League in 1931. In her oration, Woolf describes her inner struggles with the patriarchy in the context of her writing career. She tries to encourage other women to

In Virginia Woolf’s feminist essay “A Room of One’s Own,” Woolf argues that “a woman must have money and a room of her own” (16) if she is to write fiction of any merit. The point as she develops it is a perceptive one, and far more layered and various in its implications than it might at first seem. But I wonder if perhaps Woolf did not really tap the full power of her thesis. She recognized the necessity of the writer’s financial independence to the birth of great writing, but she failed to discover the true relationship to great writing of another freedom; for just as economic freedom allows one to inhabit a physical space---a room of one’s own---so does mental freedom allow one to inhabit one’s own mind and body “incandescent and

Virginia Woolf’s essay, “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown” is a befitting entry point to understand her politics of writing and creating a character. Woolf strongly puts forward the argument

The creativity and ideas of women have been stifled and ignored since the beginning of time. Seen as the weaker, less intelligent sex women were not believed to be able to create important works, especially those of literary importance. In “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf, the author expresses a simple idea that women need at least a room of their own to produce the work that they have been told they are unable to. Through stories of her thought process to reach this conclusion, Virginia Woolf concludes the idea that people should “think of things in themselves” (39) and in doing so presents a challenge to both sexes to understand what she argues are the causes and problems stemming from lack of economic freedom for women and social paradigms that hinder the act of truly thinking independently.

Many female writers see themselves as advocates for other creative females to help find their voice as a woman. Although this may be true, writer Virginia Woolf made her life mission to help women find their voice as a writer, no gender attached. She believed women had the creativity and power to write, not better than men, but as equals. Yet throughout history, women have been neglected in a sense, and Woolf attempted to find them. In her essay, A Room of One’s Own, she focuses on what is meant by connecting the terms, women and fiction. Woolf divided this thought into three categories: what women are like throughout history, women and the fiction they write, and women and the fiction written about them. When one thinks of women and

To her, it is unfair and disappointing that women have an easier time at becoming writers because “The family peace was not broken by the scratching of a pen” (Woolf 356). As long as the woman’s performance in completing her duties of managing the house was not affected, she was allowed to write. Even so, a female professional still had more difficulties than a male professional since “she has still many ghosts to fight, many prejudices to overcome” (359). In fact, Woolf’s inner consciousness, characterized by an angel, said that it was unbecoming and unseemly for a woman to express her opinions, which infuriated Woolf to the point of killing the thought that women should have more restrictions than men do (357). Her experiences with how society oppresses women inspired her to become an activist for women’s rights. Professions for Women was delivered to women in the early 1900s who had their own jobs and who were interested in Woolf’s experiences as a writer and professional. This was demonstrated when Woolf states that “The whole position, as I see it‒here in this hall surrounded by women practicing for the first time in history I know not how many different professions‒is one of extraordinary interest and importance” (360). Woolf feels it is her duty to address working women of the challenges that must be