Review: A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

What is the importance of A Room of One's Own? Perhaps because it, maybe for the first time, exposes the treatment women face in academia and the literati, these so-called sacred liberal place where anything is permitted in the name of knowledge and art, glorious in its supposed progressiveness, turned away a woman from a library because she did not have a (male) Fellows with him or a letter of introduction from the (male) Dean. Perhaps because it talks about the importance of material things in creating literature, that if we see the biography and history of great poets and writers we shall see a history of privileged men educated in the best schools meant to foster their genius. Perhaps because it emphasizes that for a woman to be truly free, then she must have a room of one's own i.e. an income independent of her husband or any one in her life, an income that is truly, wholly hers.

The theme of A Room of One's Own is classic. It is about women's emancipation, about women and fiction, about women and history. Mrs. Woolf predicts that in a hundred years, more women will take on traditionally male profession such as stockbroker and barristers and soldiers and doctors. In some ways, she is true: there are more female CEOs, female lawyers, female doctors, female stockbrokers, female soldiers now than there were in 1928, but that is not high praise, for any number is greater than zero. Even with this progress, women still face sexism in everyday life. Despite the fact that any field now welcomes women if she pleases to enter it, the "glass ceiling" still exist, and women were still paid less than men. Mrs. Woolf pointed out an essay that espouses women's inferiority in her book. She said that due to its antiquated ideals, we may be excused to think that it was written in 1868 and not 1928. Sadly, as I read the essay, I think it's similar to many other essays written by "well-meaning" (male) academia and religious leader that I have the misfortune to read in 2015.

A Room of One's Own then remains relevant even a hundred years after its publication. Like when Mrs. Woolf pointed out how "drawing-room" novels were derided because most often they're written by women about women and how "battlefield" novels were praised because they are written by men about men, so does now, when women who watch romantic-comedy films are said as silly chits while films who have explosion and guns were given high ratings. Women who read romance are ridiculed yet no one ridicules men who read those awful Tom Clancy thrillers and its derivatives. Sexism is still alive, even when women are granted the vote, even when there are women barristers and women stockbrokers taking up office in the City. The cards are stacked against us, but women will always find their voice. As Mrs. Woolf said: "lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind."