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jimsreadingandstuff 's review for:
A Room of One's Own
by Virginia Woolf
A fascinating look at why and how women have been disadvantaged in the arts throughout history. Woolf argues that for a woman to be able to write or create art she would need money (500 pounds a year in 1928) and a room of her own that she could lock. Throughout history women were too poor and lacked the free time to create art because of the patriarchy. She imagined that if Shakespeare had a sister, equally gifted, the sister would have no possibility of pursuing a career like Shakespeare's. Women were not allowed to act in Elizabethan times and if she were to go to London, she would probably be raped and die in poverty. At the time of writing (1928), women were finally getting more freedoms, they were allowed to vote in the UK, there had been universities open to women scholars since 1866 and the professions were finally opening up to allow women in. She also argues to create great art, women need to build on those who went before, she looks at the great woman pioneers of the English novel in the 18th century like Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot. The book is taken from a couple of speeches she made to two women's colleges to encourage the women scholars to go and write not just novels but all kinds of writing.