Part III: 1920-1963

So, I can’t help but take literally the meaning of the title "A Room of One's Own," written by Virginia Woolf. I've tried to read the entire book and just can’t seem to push through it, despite the fact that it's a short read. But after reading an excerpt that really resonated with my own life, I think I'm going to try reading it again.

Last year my father decided to leave. He also decided to stop paying the mortgage on my family’s home (so now we’re in the process of moving out). My little brother started having stomach aches from all of the stress and my Momma went berserk, quiting the stable job she’s had for twenty years. All of this happened within a year’s time, and I’m still not over it. I probably won’t ever be over it.

But, things have started to look up. In August (amidst an awful economic crisis…we never do things the easy way) my Mom bought a small house. We call it the cottage, but that’s really just nice terminology. Think cabin.

The cottage was built in 1932--just three years after Woolf published A Room of One's Own.



This is where I’m going: I think Woolf, by writing A Room of One's Own, was asserting that each woman deserves to have her own space, on her own accord. She deserves the solitude of knowing she is in a woman centered space of her own construct. She deserves to be free from the sexual advances of man, and have a private space that can be used for intellectual development, emotional fulfillment, finding inner-peace. She deserves the economic and political freedom associated with having your one's own space.



Growing up, I never had my own space, and neither did my Mother. We were constantly living around my dad. For instance, if he wanted to be in the living room watching ESPN, we were in my parents' room compromising on what we'd like to watch together. And, I can't tell you how many times I sat on our back porch to paint my toenails, because he didn't like the smell of nail polish and didn't want it in the house.


Emotional abuse issues aside, I haven't known what it's like to have a "room" of my own until recently. Over winter break I worked a lot of my anger towards patriarchy out while I was teaching myself to cut and hang drywall. Knocking out and re-building the walls of my Mother’s own house, I reclaimed something for myself, too. And, little did I know I was preparing myself to better understand where Virginia Woolf was coming from when she wrote a fundamental piece of feminist theory.