A Room Of One's Own Patriarchy

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In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf explores the flipside of the perception of the patriarchy and uses anger as a common thread in her arguments. First, she challenges the idea that men are the sole beneficiaries of the patriarchy and claims a male-dominated society negatively affects men since they develop misplaced anger and fragile egos that depend on the perceived inferiority of women. Secondly, Woolf says women may actually benefit from the patriarchy, and because women have not been exposed to the same experiences as men for so long, they developed a unique writing style (86). Woolf says women should embrace this distinct feminine voice, instead of trying to write like men or be angry about the injustices inflicted on them. However, …show more content…

Women will be able to “write all kinds of books” and eventually establish a literary tradition – after all, any great female writer, “like Sappho, like the Lady Murasaki, like Emily Brontë, you will find that she is an inheritor as well as an originator” (107-108). Women’s writing will improve if they have forebears to inspire them and guide them in their artistic journey. For society to treat women seriously as artists, instead of as complainers, they should actually create and stop being bitter and angry since “the excuse of lack of opportunity … and money no longer holds good” (111). Eventually, people will recognize the equal talents of female writers. However, even if women create this great literary legacy, men will still be in control of other aspects of life, like politics and law. This literary tradition is only a small piece of what it takes for women to achieve equality, and thus more literary respect is not enough – it must come with political and economic equality as well. Thus, Woolf should inspire female writers to talk about their anger at not being included in the same venues and experience as men – it is not complaining or “pitting sex against sex,” it is bringing much-needed attention to the other rights they deserve and are not getting (104). Women absolutely have the right to feel angry at only benefitting slightly from the patriarchy, when men have gained so much more from the

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