“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer, and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.”
― Charlotte Brontë
Some months ago, a girl friend and I went to the mall to buy new clothes and we decided to shop around the men's section first to get some shirts (because let us face it, some of us think they are so much more comfortable than women's) and an employee in there caught our attention by asking us what were we doing there. We told her we were looking for some shirts for us and she insisted we were in the wrong section. She complained that women must wear women's clothes since they should not look less feminine nor lose their identity and reiterated that the world nowadays is upside down in where no rules or patterns are followed anymore, but, is it true we have got to that “equality” level with no social gender roles/traditions/keens that many people claim we have gained? Now, I ask myself, what would Virginia think about this?
Inequal reality
Inequality (noun): the unfair situation in society when some people have more opportunities, money, etc. than other people.
Source: Cambridge Dictionaries Online
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/inequality
It is well known that throughout decades women have been some of the rulers of the VIP territory of underrated and unvalued human beings, and no, not because they have the right to say what should/should not be done, but because they are the main guests of this patriarchal party in which it is already stated what costume should be worn, what the role of each one within this feast is and what they are expected to perform.
We see that there is a lack of equality whither opportunities and rights for men and women, and it is rendered into a kind of superiority that is beneficial for half of the population only. Woolf creates a fictional character, Judith Shakespeare, who is settled as the gifted, talented and brilliant sister of William Shakespeare to make a contrast between what is offered to a gender and what is forbidden to the other. In spite of having the same skills, capability and background, the author commands us to be aware of the circumstances they had to go through just because of being female humans. It is related to how women are seen among society and within their own surroundings, due to they must replicate certain archetype, and if it is was not followed, they were seen practically as incomplete creatures.
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| Godey's Fashions for February 1874 |
Authors at the time had also this foresight and it is reflected in history and literature. Virginia wonders why wealth and poverty are strikingly different between these two genders and she finds the influence of this in the value both genders generate, being one of them more important than the other in all senses. In history, women had no rights in most of the countries, and nowadays, even when we are allegedly more advanced within this field, many cultures still forbidden women to live in peace and prosperity. The author, in her attempts to find an answer of why it this treatment given, she realizes that there are many books written by men about women but none for women writing about men. She also appreciates that the perception of inferiority men have towards women is actually a feeling of superiority hidden by themselves, as a way to be protected and enlarged in this image towards an empowerment of the “weak gender”.
“An androgynous mind was not a male mind. It was a mind attuned to the full range of human experience, including the invisible lives of women.”
― Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
For Woolf, having an “androgynous mind” is the major and harmonic way to explain the reality that characters should accomplish, since you can see the world from two different perspectives that lead you to a complete whole of experiences. Furthermore, if you are conscious of the vision you have towards what is in front of your eyes, it is more likeable to shape these life lessons to a personal reality.
It is all about money
Being wealthy or poor changes your vision towards the world and also changes your perspective about yourself. For our study of the text, since women could not be allowed to keep their own money for themselves until a few decades before Woolf's essay and in her own words it was essentially that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”, we have to be aware that only a few were also beneficed by this privilege. At Virginia's times, women did have the right to own properties and a wage, but in the past the truth was different, and still with some impacts in that period of time. A lot of women were still dependant of men because although the feminist movement began to arise, it was not present within the whole society. Women were prevented to get respected jobs nor all fields were granted for women to study at college/institutes, and of course, the salary they could get was also inferior than men's paycheck.
But, what does being a lady means?
I reckon it is not necessary to say again that women's rights have not been respected and we still have a quite long road to go along, therefore I am here, as a woman, to share my own viewpoint of what is sold to us (yes, because now we can and have to buy) of what being a “real woman” is: well, it is not a surprise that we still have to go after certain templates, but do you think they are the same as in the Victorian times?
Here we go with some examples:
- To be always O.K. – being kind to people and to try to project a good image has been a “rule” to every gender, nevertheless, if you are aware of advertisement then and now have always shown a particular beauty model that must to be followed for women to feel themselves like women and to seem like women. XL eyelashes, tiny waists, saloon's hair, perfect nails, etc. What a expensive way!
- Dress code – Vans large size shoes? No way! At least if you want to look like a boy, then it is alright. Does it sound fair?
- Motherhood – unfortunately, there are still people who think that if a woman is not a mother cannot be considered as a woman as a whole. It comes from the old perspective of women as the one who keeps the eyes over her family and the one who should keep the balance between the children-house. We can add to this that the woman has more value if she is married, whether men do not have a time-limit to be a husband.
- Company of men – thinking of going out on Friday to meet a friend at Subida Ecuador by 8p.m.? I advise you are not going alone, unless you want to be rapped or called a fallen woman. It must not be a law that prohibits a woman being by their own as it was before, but there are still some consequences if that rule is not attended.
- Silence, please – I believe it is not well seen yet if a woman screams or talks too loud, or at least that is what some of you have seen when you are on the bus and someone whispers “¡qué señorita!" at the moment when a girl is practically yelling on the phone. Let us be honest, it is not as when it was banned could make any sound with their high heels, but still. Some might think something is something, but what about you?
The Goat: a room for your own
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| Charlotte Brontë, a brilliant and proud owner of a room. |
For some feminists it is hard to believe wholeheartedly this discourse of a gentlewoman talking about gender equality and women's rights when this Woolf girl was someone that did not experienced the essence of being an ordinary girl, since she could have the money to have her privacy and the opportunities given thanks to her father for education and because of falling into the society's game: she had to marry in spite of her own will. Thus, what about the Judiths of the time? The ones that were shadowed for males, the ones that had a whole world to give, the ones that were born as special as men are, but still were forbidden to fly?
Yes, they just did not owned a room, they just did not owned their future and did not even thought of owning their lives.
Behind all those anonymous and men-but-no-men signed novels and works written by women, we could have had some vast literary masterpieces if the treatment was different, but may we get Judith's pride back?
Certainly, my point of view is based upon my own experiences and my own sight of the world, could you say I am wrong? Perhaps, I might change it someday, however, I am learning from others, with what I read or what I have heard. Throughout the years our society has developed new brand ways to be as much inclusive as it can, although I believe there cannot be a change if the base of ideas is not changed. It is a long way to go, and avoiding gender roles and stereotypes would be much easier to go through this quicker. So I ask you, do you really think we are on the right way?
References
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/women
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/androgyny
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/victorian_britain/women_home/ideals_womanhood_01.shtml
Hi Francisca,
ResponderEliminarAnswering your question, I personally consider that Chilean society at least (so as not to be pretty abstract in my example) is just at the top of the iceberg if we think about our idiosyncratic sexism. I mean, doubtless, we are more aware of how women have historically received an unequal treatment in Chile than previous generations, regarding not only social issues as educational opportunities and job fields, but also cultural roles as people thought to be mothers and house-makers essentially.
Yet, while a woman can go college, be an athlete, make incredible scientific contributions, write a book, or join the army (hopefully not for any gender, but that is another matter...), I notice that in general people would still expect that she had a baby and be "the angel" of her home. If she didn't do, probably she would be consider just a women trying to seem a man, because men do not need home life to be consider a whole person, but unfairly women do.
In my point of view our mistake as Chilean society has to do with conformism, with an attitude of accepting matters uncritically. It may be possible that today most of us would say that women deserve the same rights, but at which extent we would be just responding to the world-wide tendency? Most people might not be totally convinced, as they erroneously consider that having an opinion is enough to make a significant change. But it is not worthwhile at all to be politically correct when we are asked if we are going to be continuously sexists.
Thus, we seem to be not concerned for taking a concrete course of action which turns our allegedly new beliefs into a different attitude towards woman identity. That's because many people look a woman who says "I don't want to become a mother" annoyed or astonished. That's because we still loved watch home angels or neurotic single girls in the television. That’s because we still laugh at homophobic and sexist jokes. That's because we still need differentiated section, shelves, bookstores or even printing houses to find that literature which have emerged from women, because Chilean people are still undercover sexists, because we don’t admit it easily, but we are still skeptic about women work's quality and, in the end, that’s because books written by women tend to be less preferred, unless another woman buy them.
I definitely agree with both of you, particularly when Nielsen says that we are still unconvinced of the ability of women to produce good writing.
ResponderEliminarBy the way, I loved the fact that Francisca began her post with that quote because whenever I have to think about masterpieces in literature, Jane Eyre comes to my mind (among others, of course) and -believe it or not, dear society- it was written by a woman in the 19th century. It is so well-written and, as long as you do not regard it as merely a love story, the characters are extremely interesting. My point is that even being such a good writer, Charlotte, as well as Emily and Anne, was afraid of publishing anything under her real name and why? because people's judgement was greatly influenced by the author's gender. Consequently, the Brontë sisters agreed on publishing their poems under the names of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; actually, in a preface to Wuthering Heights, Charlotte said: “the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because — without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called ‘feminine’— we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery which is not true praise.”
Well, undoubtedly things have changed, I mean, now we get to vote, but I would say that authoresses are still looked on with prejudice, let us just think about J. K. Rowling, when the first book in the Harry Potter saga came out, Rowling's publisher suggested that it would be better if the readers ignored that the author was a woman, so they only put her initials on the cover. How different is that from the situations presented by Woolf and C. Brontë? I would say not much.