Student Question
Do you agree with Woolf's assertion that women need a room and "five Hundred a year" to write equally to men?
Quick answer:
Virginia Woolf argues that women need financial independence and a private space to write, highlighting the constraints of household and caregiving duties imposed on women during her time. These demands left women without the time or resources to pursue writing, even when single. Woolf's assertion is reasonable given the historical context, though she does not claim that these factors alone would ensure gender equality in writing.
Woolf asserts that women need money and a room of their own to be able to write because of the sheer interminability of household and care labor that is expected from women at the time. Left to care for children alone and to perform nearly as much care for their husbands, women have no time to themselves with which to even think about writing. Even when women are single, they make such a low wage that it's still hard to imagine them finding the time. These are all perfectly reasonable assertions to make considering the social context at the time. This said, Virginia Woolf does not assert that space and money are enough to make women and men equal, which would be a wild and unsupportable claim.
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