I really enjoyed this book. I would have loved to have been sitting in the audience listening to Woolf speak. It was interesting to read her comments about the differences between the women's colleges (Newnham, Girton) and the men's. In my naiveté when I would read about the women's colleges and when I would read about the men's colleges at Cambridge or Oxford, I assumed we were talking about similar animals. I never imagined that the women's colleges were so hard fought for nor so under-endowed - though it makes perfect sense that that is how it was given the male-dominated world we live in.
Woolf imagines a university environment where subjects are interdisciplinary, "lectures would be abolished in favour of discussions" and awards and honours would be gone. Sounds great - it certainly hasn't gone that way in the past 90 years. She speaks about women being "victims of informal patronage which discriminates against them in terms of both selection & promotion" - and that too is certainly still the case today. The "old boys" network is still a factor.
Woolf has a great way of describing things - it's this quality that makes me think I would have enjoyed knowing her.
pg 10
The source of the anger is a puzzle. I would imagine it is equally puzzling (if it exists) to minority groups as well (women are interesting in that they are by no means a minority group and yet they have been treated as different, as lesser than, as lesser than the patriarchs for millennia it seems). pg 43
Later on Woolf quotes Oscar Browning who used to examine the [women] students at the [women's] colleges of Newnham and Girton and who said, "the best woman was intellectually the inferior of the worst man." pg 69
Reading this book was a great reminder of how limited women's lives were within the last century still. I grew up with women's lib being a big civil rights topic and went to school and started working when there were many professions that were male-dominated. Being a veterinarian has shown this very clearly. My class was the 1st one at my college to have as many women as men in it. Almost all our profs were men and I remember working at a clinic on the summer break and having a farmer tell me that he thought women becoming vets could be a good thing because their husbands would save on vet bills. I remember having my pager (shows how old I am) go off in a store when I was on call and having the clerk assume it was one of the men on either side of me, not mine and when I turned it off, she asked if it was my husbands.
Getting back to Woolf, she mentions the ways women could earn any money of their own: addressing envelopes, reading to old ladies, making artificial flowers, teaching the alphabet to small children. She describes the difficulty of toiling away at these jobs and trying to survive on the small amount of money and says (pg 48):
She writes about the man being the 'lord and master' of the household and the control exerted over women, especially as regards to who they will marry. I can't help but think about what I read about the situation for women from India and it persists even when they come to Canada with men feeling that it is OK to beat or kill the women in their lives if they don't obey their wishes. We see these outcomes in the paper - within the last few weeks a man (originally from India) was sentenced for shooting his teenage girlfriend because she wanted to break up with him. A father and son and newer wife (the parents originally from India) in Ontario kill ALL the women in the family except the newer wife because the older daughters were trying to live more free lives. Women burned because they want to marry the man they love, women beaten for not obeying, dowry murders etc etc. It's not so much the murder of someone close to you that is puzzling to me, we see many "crimes of passion" but it is these cases where women are being killed, not so much because they don't love someone any more or were unfaithful but because they dared not to obey the men in the family. Woolf writes about how wife-beating was accepted. I remember reading old Andy Capp cartoons as a kid and being shocked by Capp punching and beating his wife was used a subject of humour and something to be endured in a marriage. Woolf mentions the paradox where women are seemingly held to high regard as objects of beauty, delicate, frail, innocent, alluring, pure on the one hand and yet on the other hand she is completely insignificant. pg 54-56
Woolf laments the situation that we know almost nothing about what was really like for women prior to the 18th c. She recalls an elderly bishop who said it was impossible for any woman, past, present, or to come, to have the genius of Shakespeare [I would argue it would be hard for anyone, man, woman or Martian, to have the genius of Shakespeare]. This same bishop was asked if cats go to heaven and replied that they don't but they do have souls. Woolf comments: "How much thinking those old gentlemen used to save one!" pg 59
A great quote was Margaret of Newcastle, the Duchess, who said (pg 79):
A few times Woolf refers to the [in]famous quote of Samuel Johnson's about women and [insert talent or activity here: Johnson used preaching but it could be writing, Doctoring, teaching math, building a bridge, soldiering etc etc] preaching (pg 417):
The copy of the book we read was combined with another work "Three Guineas." I didn't get a chance to read the 2nd book but I'll try and get back to it this summer.
Woolf imagines a university environment where subjects are interdisciplinary, "lectures would be abolished in favour of discussions" and awards and honours would be gone. Sounds great - it certainly hasn't gone that way in the past 90 years. She speaks about women being "victims of informal patronage which discriminates against them in terms of both selection & promotion" - and that too is certainly still the case today. The "old boys" network is still a factor.
Woolf has a great way of describing things - it's this quality that makes me think I would have enjoyed knowing her.
pg 10
As I leant against the wall the University indeed seemed a sanctuary in which are preserved rare types which would soon be obsolete if left to fight for existence on the pavement of the Strand.Though Woolf was able to make her comments, about the sexism all about and how women have been so constrained, in a quietly clever and humorous there are times when what she sees around her or reads makes her angry. She speaks about reading a 'learned professor' who wrote about "the mental, moral and physical inferiority of women' and how subconsciously she drew an angry picture, doodle, not realizing until then how angry the comment made her. But Woolf realizes that many of these comments come from men who themselves are angry about something and she asks what are they angry about?
The source of the anger is a puzzle. I would imagine it is equally puzzling (if it exists) to minority groups as well (women are interesting in that they are by no means a minority group and yet they have been treated as different, as lesser than, as lesser than the patriarchs for millennia it seems). pg 43
Nobody in their senses could fail to detect the dominance of the professor, His was the power and the money and the influence. He was the proprietor of the paper and its editor and sub-editor. He was the Foreign Secretary and the Judge. He was the cricketer; he owned the racehorses and the yachts. He was the director of the company that pays 200% to its shareholders. He left millions to charities and colleges that were ruled by himself....With the exception of the fog he seemed to control everything. Yet he was angry.As Woolf tries to figure out what 'men' are angry about, she decides that the anger arises from a perceived need to protect one's superiority. To be superior, others have to be inferior. She also muses on women being used by men as mirrors to reflect them back to themselves as being larger than they really are. I'm not sure about that. Though I can think of many instances where this is true (behind every man stands a great woman type stuff) I don't know if it's a universal societal thing - especially in 2013.
Later on Woolf quotes Oscar Browning who used to examine the [women] students at the [women's] colleges of Newnham and Girton and who said, "the best woman was intellectually the inferior of the worst man." pg 69
Reading this book was a great reminder of how limited women's lives were within the last century still. I grew up with women's lib being a big civil rights topic and went to school and started working when there were many professions that were male-dominated. Being a veterinarian has shown this very clearly. My class was the 1st one at my college to have as many women as men in it. Almost all our profs were men and I remember working at a clinic on the summer break and having a farmer tell me that he thought women becoming vets could be a good thing because their husbands would save on vet bills. I remember having my pager (shows how old I am) go off in a store when I was on call and having the clerk assume it was one of the men on either side of me, not mine and when I turned it off, she asked if it was my husbands.
Getting back to Woolf, she mentions the ways women could earn any money of their own: addressing envelopes, reading to old ladies, making artificial flowers, teaching the alphabet to small children. She describes the difficulty of toiling away at these jobs and trying to survive on the small amount of money and says (pg 48):
But what still remains with me as a worse infliction than either was the poison of fear and bitterness which those days bred in me.
She writes about the man being the 'lord and master' of the household and the control exerted over women, especially as regards to who they will marry. I can't help but think about what I read about the situation for women from India and it persists even when they come to Canada with men feeling that it is OK to beat or kill the women in their lives if they don't obey their wishes. We see these outcomes in the paper - within the last few weeks a man (originally from India) was sentenced for shooting his teenage girlfriend because she wanted to break up with him. A father and son and newer wife (the parents originally from India) in Ontario kill ALL the women in the family except the newer wife because the older daughters were trying to live more free lives. Women burned because they want to marry the man they love, women beaten for not obeying, dowry murders etc etc. It's not so much the murder of someone close to you that is puzzling to me, we see many "crimes of passion" but it is these cases where women are being killed, not so much because they don't love someone any more or were unfaithful but because they dared not to obey the men in the family. Woolf writes about how wife-beating was accepted. I remember reading old Andy Capp cartoons as a kid and being shocked by Capp punching and beating his wife was used a subject of humour and something to be endured in a marriage. Woolf mentions the paradox where women are seemingly held to high regard as objects of beauty, delicate, frail, innocent, alluring, pure on the one hand and yet on the other hand she is completely insignificant. pg 54-56
Woolf laments the situation that we know almost nothing about what was really like for women prior to the 18th c. She recalls an elderly bishop who said it was impossible for any woman, past, present, or to come, to have the genius of Shakespeare [I would argue it would be hard for anyone, man, woman or Martian, to have the genius of Shakespeare]. This same bishop was asked if cats go to heaven and replied that they don't but they do have souls. Woolf comments: "How much thinking those old gentlemen used to save one!" pg 59
A great quote was Margaret of Newcastle, the Duchess, who said (pg 79):
Women live like Bats or Owls, labour like Beasts, and die like Worms."She also quotes Dorothy Osborne, a woman who "wrote letters". She ends one of her letters with a very evocative phrase (pg 81):
...when I have supped I goe into the Garden and soe to the syde of a small River that runs by it where I sitt downe and wish you with mee...Woolf writes about Aphra Behn (1640-1689) who made her living as a writer but also was rumoured to have been a spy and to have been promiscuous. Woolf describes the "value men put on a woman's chastity"
A few times Woolf refers to the [in]famous quote of Samuel Johnson's about women and [insert talent or activity here: Johnson used preaching but it could be writing, Doctoring, teaching math, building a bridge, soldiering etc etc] preaching (pg 417):
Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog walking on his hind legs. It's not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.What Woolf wants for women - and which anyone not part of the power elite of the world should have - is "the habit of freedom, and the courage to write exactly what we think; if we escape a little from the common sitting-room and see human beings not always in relation to each other but in relation to reality; and the sky, too, and the trees or whatever it may be in themselves; if we look past Milton's bogey for no human being should shut themselves out the view; if we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women" then Shakespeare's sister, who didn't receive his education and never got a chance to be anything, whatever that might have been, might have been able to realize her potential.
The copy of the book we read was combined with another work "Three Guineas." I didn't get a chance to read the 2nd book but I'll try and get back to it this summer.
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