Professions for Women: Virginia Woolf

 

Essay: Professions for Women by Virginia Woolf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOEfZmOI17I&t=15s

About the Essayist

Virginia Woolf 

          Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), a prominent English modernist, was born into a literary family. Known for innovative narrative techniques, her notable works include Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and Orlando." As a key figure in the Bloomsbury Group, she explored the complexities of human consciousness. Woolf's essays, particularly "A Room of One's Own," addressed women's challenges in literature. Struggling with mental health, she tragically took her life in 1941, leaving a lasting legacy in modernist literature.

The Main Gist of Essay

In her essay "Professions for Women," Virginia Woolf explores the challenges and expectations placed on women in the early 20th century, especially those pursuing careers. Woolf reflects on her own struggles as a writer, emphasizing the need for women to overcome societal obstacles and break free from conventional expectations. She encourages women to confront internal and external barriers, providing insights into the obstacles she faced and offering a rallying cry for women to claim their place in the professional world.

Summary of the Essay

The speech of Professions for Women was given in 1931 to the Women’s Service League by Virginia Woolf. It was also included in Death of a Moth and Other Essays in 1942. Throughout the speech, Virginia Woolf brings forward a problem that is still relevant today: gender inequality. Woolf’s main point in this essay was to bring awareness to the phantoms (illusions) and obstacles women face in their jobs. Woolf argues that women must overcome special obstacles to become successful in their careers. She describes two hazards she thinks all women who aspire to professional life must overcome: their tendency to sacrifice their own interests to those of others and their reluctance (hesitancy) to challenge conservative male attitudes. 

She starts her speech by describing how female writers before her have paved an easier path to her becoming successful. She speaks of the struggle present for all women writers, and that is to break out of the conventions society has for women- being pure, conservative, and sycophantic towards men without a mind of their own. This is a mental barrier that she was able to break, with great difficulty, to incorporate her own voice into her writing. She was able to do so because of her financial independence, which allowed her to not depend on writing for a livelihood and allowed her to break conventions.

Professions for Women reveals Woolf to be a bold, hungry, and, more importantly, ambitious woman. Woolf declares, “This freedom is only a beginning; the room is your own, but it is still bare. It has to be furnished; it has to be decorated; it has to be shared” (Woolf, 1931). Woolf claims that in order for a woman to be a writer, one must overcome a few obstacles that are inflicted upon women writers. One obstacle to her success is “The Angel in the House.” Woolf uses an allusion to a nineteenth-century Victorian poem, “Angel in the House,” to reference her obstacles as “phantoms” and the “Angel” as society telling her that she's doing wrong by not following the female stereotype of the 1930s. The Angel or society tells Woolf that she shouldn't think freely and that she should be cute and seductive. This is one of the phantoms or obstacles that Woolf encounters in her profession of writing. 

This angel prevents her from fully writing what she wants since it persistently tells her what society is expecting. The phantoms (illusions) she mentions are what people expect from women. For instance, Woolf is “supposed” to be sympathetic, respectful, pure, charming, and unselfish. She constantly kills the phantom, but it always manages to return. Therefore, she advises other writers to tap into their unconscious mind, as it will help them write what they truly want. Writing consciously leads to writing what society wants, thus not being able to express one’s true opinion. Woolf wants women to continue fighting these phantoms and obstacles. For instance, she uses a metaphor of an empty house and asks questions like how it will be decorated, who it will be shared with, etc. Just because one has rights does not mean that one should give up on fighting the injustices they are still bound to face. She inspires women to fight for equal rights for men and women and to try and put an end to stereotypes.

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