A Room of One's Own

A Room of One’s Own thematically highlights the importance of discussing the intergenerational aspects of oppression when discussing sexism. In modern feminist rhetoric, discussions about the prolonged oppression of women often use the term “systemic oppression” to describe forms of discrimination that are deeply entrenched in the sociopolitical systems that govern life. Much of Woolf’s discussion about intergenerational oppression is analogous to modern discussions about systemic sexism. Woolf’s primary argument is that women’s oppression breeds more women’s oppression over time because women are continually disadvantaged. This justifies the cyclical nature inherent to Woolf’s conceptualizations of sexism and allows her to identify some of the underlying systems that are proliferated within the patriarchy like the ongoing misrepresentation of women in literature.

In Chapter 1, the narrator details the life of Mary Seton’s mother, Mrs. Seton, who had thirteen children. This discussion is spurred by the narrator considering the disparity between funding for women’s universities: Men’s universities have been well-funded by men for centuries, but the newly established women’s universities struggle to garner the minimum amount of necessary funding. “If only,” the narrator laments, “Mrs. Seton and her mother and her mother before her had learnt the great art of making money and had left their money” to women’s universities (36). Because Mrs. Seton and her foremothers were unable to earn such money or endow it to future women, her daughter must work at Fernham College instead of the prestigious Oxbridge. Mrs. Seton was both legally and informally prohibited from earning such money because there were laws forbidding women from holding wealth and social expectations for women to remain at home raising children. Woolf argues that if women like Mrs. Seton are unable to garner their own wealth, they will be unable to fund experiences for women to improve their social position. While this might be an oversimplification of the system, this example illustrates the cyclical nature of sexist oppression.

Intergenerational oppression, Woolf also argues, relates to men’s obsession with occupying the superior position over women. Using the metaphorical description that women are “looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size” (50), Woolf argues that a primary component of intergenerational oppression is the arbitrary dichotomy between men and women. Part of the sexist system relies on directly limiting women, but another part relies on the construction of men as inherently superior to women. In the 1920s, growing discussions about sexism “have roused in men an extraordinary desire for self-assertion” because the continuation of the patriarchal system necessitates that men remain superior (114). The cyclical and intergenerational nature of systemic sexist oppression requires the constant reification of men because sexism is based upon arbitrary beliefs of women’s inferiority. Woolf believes that the nature of this arrangement is not only harmful to both parties, effectively placing unnecessary restraints on the achievements of both sexes; but that it is also intentional. Woolf claims that “Intellectual freedom depends upon material things” because people need access to education to become intellectual, and as such “Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom” (123). Because “women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time” (123), they cannot collectively access intellectual freedom and instead continue serving as looking glasses for men who are not limited by intergenerational poverty.

A Room of One’s Own contains the word “queer” to refer to things that are odd or outside of expectations (an appropriate use of this word in the 1920s), but A Room of One’s Own also includes a sublet thematic discussion of gayness or queerness. Today, queerness is a term reclaimed by the LGBTQ+ community to refer to people who are not heterosexual, which can be experienced in a variety of ways. Discussions of queerness have become enmeshed in feminist discussions (and vice versa) because both the gay liberation and feminist movements aim to combat systemic oppression based on gender identity and sexual orientation. For Woolf, questioning certain aspects associated with the female sex are essential in solidifying her feminist position. Yet these were dangerous ideas to express in the 1920s.

The most salient example of Woolf’s discussion of queerness stems from the “Chloe liked Olivia” discussion regarding the fictitious Mary Carmichael’s Life’s Adventures in Chapter 5 (97). Though much of the discussion about this specific line concerns the lives of average women and the misrepresentation of women characters in fiction (especially concerning their definitions based on their relationships to men), this line can be interpreted through a queer lens. During Woolf’s lifetime, it was not only socially unacceptable to express queer desires, but it was illegal and punishable under the law to write certain content about queer ideas. The passage introducing the line “Chloe liked Olivia” indicates the semi-coded language used by authors to hide their discussions about queerness (97): Woolf asks readers several times if there are any men present, suggesting that “Sometimes women do like women” (97). Though Woolf does not overtly state that Chloe and Olivia are romantic partners, she doesn’t preclude the possibility either. To write about a potentially queer relationship in this way allowed Woolf to leave room for interpretation.

Another example of queerness arises in Woolf’s discussion of the androgynous mind in Chapter 6. Her descriptions of the “woman-manly” and “man-womanly” minds (perhaps more clearly stated as female-dominant and male-dominant minds, respectively) places some elements of the essentialist gender perspective into question. Though Woolf readily accepts that there are inherently masculine and feminine qualities that manifest in the way men and women think or act (an essentialist perspective), her description of the overlap of these qualities within one mind incorporates elements of queer acceptance. This questioning of essentialist gender theories has led to the more modern conceptualizations of gender, sex, and sexuality as different components that exist on and across spectrums.