How does a room of one's own apply in a virtual world? a review & commentary

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Coffee Talks

Through these refreshing posts (hopefully paired with your favorite caffeinated beverage), I share anecdotes, fun facts, and reflections from my life away from the classroom. So, imagine we are sharing a conversation over coffee (I’ll have an iced chai with oat milk) – you choose the place. I’ll provide the topic.

(Although I am categorizing this post within the "Coffee Talks" series, it deviates from that label as well as the tone and style of my traditional blog posts. I felt this essay's thesis and message applied to the current political climate, and I wanted to share my reflections as an emerging writer. And finally, I just thought it would be fun to attempt my literature review since high school!)

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“For masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind a single voice.”

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

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Oh, this takes me back to high school. Junior year, AP Literature. A semester of the classics - Pride and Prejudice, Invisible Man, The Sun Also Rises – excruciating timed essays, and rushed thematic group projects. Unhinged analyses, covered in highlighter ink, the side of my left hand burnt by ink, color-coded tabs decorating the pages in rainbow formation. Frantic late-night SparkNotes and Cliff notes deep dives for self-consolation before the exam. Reading, rereading, committing dates, names, and facts to memory to forget them when I received the menacing packet. And in the biweekly finale, the culminating essay, featuring the stressful clickety-clack of old keyboards in the computer lab.

A bit overdramatic? Perhaps but my (Ivy-league bound) classmates hopefully will vouch for me. However melodramatically dreadful I recall literature review essays, I always felt an affinity towards the analytical process. Digging out quotes, assessing figurative language, and, recently, deciphering the style and syntax. A book is a puzzle that my brain is fit to disassemble and mend. 

So, I am ready to give the literature review another go, but with a personal twist (aka a social commentary). The subject: Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own.
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I became intrigued after picking up this essay among the shelves of feminist novels in San Francisco’s City Lights bookstore. The summary presented a personal narrative about Shakespeare’s hypothetical sister and her ultimate suicide. A young woman – with blinding potential and poetic talent – is forced into the shadows, not writing a single verse or stanza due to societal dismissal and absence of intellectual nurture. In her renowned style, Woolf elegantly and candidly revealed the complicated circumstances in which a woman writer must be born, raised, and published. She presented a fictitious thesis: "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

In the period spanning from the late 16th to the early 20th century, misogyny and structural sexism presented a one-dimensional image of women.* The sex was deemed unsuitable for a proper education; their bodies were the only source of progress and advancement. Their minds, ideas, souls, and hearts were invisible; millions lived dormant without any creative spark or motivation to reach outside their manmade cage. In A Room of One's Own, a fictional narrator analyzed the haunting reality of women in fiction: “It would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare.” 

*It is easy to oversimplify 300 years of history. Women have led countless movements around the world. Throughout history, women pioneered within their respective fields and fought for respect, equity under law, and recognition for their contributions and abilities. However, the systemic, institutional barriers rooted in patriarchy remained a consistent force. 

The essay critiqued the careers of notable women authors in history: Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, and George Eliot, to name a few. Woolf wittingly critiqued each success and talent while praising their contribution to feminist literature. The creation of a masterpiece is a harrowing endeavor for any writer. However, Woolf argued that the masterpieces written by women are representative of a collective voice: “For masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind a single voice.” 

Writing is a vessel to express an author's deepest reflections, confront their darkest truths, take tantalizing steps toward epiphanies, and present their nuance and intelligence all behind the shield of written words. People write for all different reasons: to persuade, to tell a story, to honor a legacy, and to elicit emotions from the reader. During Virginia Woolf’s lifetime, most novels exemplified relatable storylines and families. They served as windows into society and individual characters’ opinions on it. Over the succeeding decades, the purpose and audience of writing shifted to center the author, creator, or influencer.

In 1929, Woolf claimed that when writing, “It is important to be oneself than anyone else. Do not dream of influencing people, I would say.” Fostering individuality, personality, and identity through writing was prioritized in women’s writing in the early twentieth century. Women fought for space and recognition in literature and legislation. Their pen was their sword to protest against perpetuating sexualization, belittlement, and superficiality. Now, however, we live in an age of influence. The daily content is produced to influence others’ decisions, opinions, and lifestyles. The art of storytelling and writing fictional worlds is lost in a culture of “day in the life” videos. 

Woolf’s message perseveres to resonate throughout the past decade's massive cultural and technological shift. Women still fight for rooms of their own on social media and in physical workspaces. On the other hand, "influencers" quickly lose their individuality with repeating audios, templates, and trendy lifestyle vlogs. Content creation – from written articles to filmed ten-second videos – must trace back to fostering identity or style, as it’s known today. If one creates something to influence others, the product is not a true reflection of the creator. 

Simultaneously, however, Woolf reminded potential women writers of their position and role in society, stating “I should implore you to remember your responsibilities, to be higher, more spiritual; I should remind you how much depends upon you, and what an influence you can exert upon the future.” Money and education are two privileges that hold great responsibility. Therefore, while women must prioritize fostering their voice and identity, they inevitably speak for and among a group that did not grow up with the same privileges. One voice, one woman can accomplish so much in shaping the future. This message encourages women to humble themselves and to use their platform to share stories with dignity. Ultimately, all identity-based communities fight the same fight for equal rights, justice, and respect through their individual rooms.

As both an emerging writer and woman, I am intrigued by the early 20th-century window into feminist literature. From a young age, I was given a room of my own in classrooms, in my home, and now, on a designated website on the internet. I was born at a time when women had the right to use their voices in universities, election polls, and published works of research. However, these precious liberties were carved by a path built by masterpieces, marches, and countless arrests – the path that Virginia Woolf, for example, paved for young women to receive an education and possibly pick up a pen.

However, not every woman, transfemme, and person assigned female at birth is designated a room of their own, and all continue to lack access to equal opportunities for cisgender men. Around the world, women’s value is reduced to their physicality. Women are expected to be everything, yet simultaneously exist one-dimensionally (listen to America Ferrera’s monologue in Barbie). The patriarchy threatens women’s place in rooms everywhere. So, in a world that continues to silence women as a collective, crack stereotypical jokes in our presence, and dismiss our ideas, we must pick up the pen, sign, microphone, and camera to let our brilliance and individuality shimmer. 

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Some rooms are given, some are earned, and some are painstakingly built from the ground up. Woolf excludes intersectionality in her argument on privilege, so it is important to recognize the privilege of white cisgender straight women. Looking through an intersectional lens, the narrator's thesis extends to people across all marginalized communities and their inequitable access to money, education, and other privileges. Although it is easier to build a room of one's own online, equality is still not a reality, and it will never be until all are respected and protected in law and life.

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