Virginia Woolf is one of the most distinguished writers of the modern literary world being the pioneer writer to understand the train of thoughts while projecting it beautifully in words. She also embarked on the world of feminist literature when she wrote “A Room of One’s Own” which was actually a lecture she gave at a prestigious university.
The argument that she so passionately follows is that for a woman to be a writer or to pursue a career in fiction, she needs a room of her own and she needs financial stability to free her mind for expression. While this statement could not have been truer, I could not help but wonder the extension of this argument and form an argument of my own!
Woolf in her paper mentions Shakespeare’s sister for the purpose of elucidating her argument and follows her unfortunate trajectory in Elizabethan England because of the disparity. Let’s assume Shakespeare’s sister with a room and money, would her fate be different? Well, if you look at it this way, the woman with a room and financial power is nothing but the women of today, our modern women. She is working, earning her own money, and well, most of us have a complete house rather than a room. Heck even Rapunzel had the whole tower to herself but it was not enough!
But, is it enough to liberate the women? Let’s not look at just writing prowess and career in Fiction per se and expand the horizon to any career that the women desire.
With almost no grain of doubt, I can affirm that it is not enough. The trajectory of the women you see is different. We talk about the fragile masculinity on lengths and assure men that things like emotions etc, do not affect the machoism of any male. It has not made much progress, but it is on the table for discussion and eventually, it will change the face of masculinity.
The concept of “Insecure Femininity” us, however, wrapped in a box and thrown in the lake with deepest water beds. The reason why financial stability and a room would not suffice is because of the societal constraints in the very fabric of our everyday lives which dictates the conventions of being “Feminine”.
Femininity is drawn to be so insecure that the women need to jostle and walk on tight ropes to maintain her feminine self. She is so busy taking care of her femininity that her career starts taking a toll!
The expectations with women are so irrational that they need the argument to be based on fragile femininity. Women are not given the same push as a man, she is not supposed to work round-the-clock, well who would do the household work? Who will cook? Who will take care of the family? Even if both the partners are working, women are the ones who are “expected” to also take care of the home, and if a good man ever divides work, he is not the standard man, but one in a handful! He is doing that out of his own thoughts and ideology but not because the society teaches him so! Even the employer assumes that a woman employee is not very productive because she has to give time to her home, she can spend late-nighters at the office, which is painfully true to a great extend.
While I make all these statements it might not work for all, for some women are blessed with liberating support and love, however, a majority of women still struggle and work hard not only to make a career but to also be her own support!
For a woman in today’s time to be successful and to make a career of her own choice needs much more than a room and financial stability, she needs equal nourishment (not in terms of nutrition), equal support and encouragement, she needs love and the burden of the insecure femininity on her needs to be taken away.
A modern woman is fighting not only the outside world but also the ideological battle where her career is not thought to be of primary importance!
Rambling thoughts 