Feminism Vs Virginia Woolf

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Recommended: Roles of women in literature

Shauna Judd
Professor Pete Chidester
English 222, Essay 2
28 April 2014
Feminism: The Ongoing Debate
The roles of women in society have constantly changed over time. The rights to be granted to both men and women have been a controversial subject often with the focuses on feminism and the cry from women to be equal to men. Over time we have seen a change in the way that women’s voices have been heard, each declaring their rights of what they should be entitled to. Literature gave women a way to express their feelings and concerns on this topic, and we see this with the emergence of Mary Wollstonecraft during the Romantic Era, and later on with Virginia Woolf in the early Twentieth Century. Mary Wollstonecraft was straightforward in her writings with her viewpoints on what she believed women to be entitled to, whereas Virginia Woolf used a more narrative route using characters and fictional situations to bring about her concerns pertaining to freedom and modern feminism. Wollstonecraft and Woolf both used their beliefs, backgrounds, and the written word to give women a voice regarding the feministic issues concerning the time periods in which they lived, with Wollstonecraft expressing her views on the importance of education and the strengthening of reason, and Woolf using her resentment of circumstances to express her ideas about gender equality, the trivial lives of women, and the social world.
Mary Wollstonecraft was an author during the Romantic Period. This was a time that put an emphasis and feeling and personal reflection. A shift in values led for the mind to be filled with ideas of individual liberty. These ideas were not immediately projected towards women, and advocates for women’s rights argued that if individual libe...

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...ton’s strong independence symbolizes the movement in society that there should be a tolerance of women in power.
What I have discussed are two women authors that have faced trials in their lifetimes pertaining to feminism that society had forced upon them. We are given insight into the ways and values of their time and how these experiences influenced their writings. In conclusion, we can see how societal issues concerning the roles of women have differed in principles, but remain the same in the way that there is an unbroken tradition regarding how men and women differ in their roles as well as their perceived rights. Female writers and advocates of women’s rights show these influences with Mary Wollstonecraft using her strong personality and direct writings and Virginia Woolf using her narratives, and both giving us insight to the struggles of an ongoing debate.

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