HW 24: Do you have a Room of One's Own?

Virginia Woolf pointed out at the beginning of the novel that in order to write fiction, you must have a room of your own. Throughout the novel I have acquired the knowledge of what it means to have a room of your own, and I do believe I have a room of my own. Women throughout the centuries have gradually gained acceptance in society. In the beginning of the novel Virginia Woolf presented many points that granted the inferiority of men. Women have slowly overcome the hole they have been stuck in for so long. They are slowly climbing out, discovering new possibilities and their capabilities. Women are proving to men, as well as themselves that they too have the capabilities to write fiction, and do what they were once not allowed to do. It is our responsibility as women to believe in what we do, and follow through on something to enhance your own abilities. Once you are confident in yourself, your mind opens up to endless possibilities. Women have been portrayed as a weak gender for so long, while men have empowered us for even longer. Woolf spoke of a reading, Diana of the Crossways, as she presented the relations of mothers and daughters in relations to men. "It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen's day, not only seen by the other sex, but seen only in relation to the other sex. And how small a part of a woman's life is that; and how little can a man know even of that when he observes it through the black or rosy spectacles which sex puts on his nose" (page 82). Men have dominated the industry of jobs and the acceptance in society while women have constantly struggled with it. Women have adapted their own creative mind in which they can expand their horizon to speak their mind through their words. This was not always allowed. The relationship between women and their own room has slowly developed as more women have created their own room. They have adjusted to society and to themselves, in which they can be comfortable in who they are. A women who has a room of her own, as I do, has a sense of knowledge in which they do not feel dominated by men, but rather equal, allowing themselves to be an individual. Virginia Woolf begins to see and accept the relationship between men and women when she encounters a man and woman who are getting into a taxi. "Perhaps to think, as I had been thinking these two days, of one sex as distinct from the other is an effort. It interferes with the unity of the mind. Now that effort had ceased and that unity had been restored by seeing two people come together in a taxi-cab" (page 97). She experiences not only the unity of the mind, but the unity of two people. She concluded that the mind ponders to various such areas, and there is no single state of being. A woman has the right to feel, say, and do as she should. As i thought about my own room of my own, I found that it shows that I have my own creative mind which can lead me to my own experiences. As an individual it allows me to experience things that I would not have once been able to a number of years ago. The power of woman has come a long way throughout the years and has enabled me to challenge myself in ways that I once would not been able to.