Mary Benton Women

Women haven’t always been treated equally and this affected many people. One person it affected was a woman named, Virginia Woolf, who wrote the story called, “A Room of One’s Own”, which discusses a little bit about the subject of inequality between men and women. The narrator who we find out is Mary Benton, starts off by talking about the differences in the education system for women and men. She then brings up literature about women and how it was pretty much nonexistent unless it was written by a man in which case, Mary, mentions that even then those that are written about women, are not written with kindness at heart but yet in anger (Woolf, 356). Mary goes on to create a fictional story about a woman named, Judith. This side story is

She then goes on to construct this story about Judith, a women who Mary says is Shakespeare’s sister. Mary, uses Shakespeare as an example because Shakespeare was and is still considered a genius by many. But unfortunately we don’t know much about his life and instead all we really know about Shakespeare are his works of art, such as his many plays. Now, Mary, goes on to mention how Judith, was born gifted just as Shakespeare was, but lacked the schooling. Shakespeare went on to learning about “the elements of grammar and logic” (Woolf, 365) while Judith took care of the house and their family with her mother. This is Mary’s way of telling us that during Shakespeare time because he was a man, he automatically was allowed to read, write, experience the world, and have an education all of which helped to enhance his natural skills. Where on the other side of things Judith, is stuck in a role, just as her mother and her mother and so on, of playing house, which we see when she says, “She picked up a book now and then, one of her brother’s perhaps, and read a few pages. But then her parents came in and told her to mend the stockings or mind the stew and not moon about with books and papers” (Woolf, 365). Which this makes Judith, unable to

Her father beat her then decided it wasn’t worth it and that Judith should stop embarrassing him. This is Mary’s way of showing how women didn’t have much say in what they could do or even who they could marry. It wasn’t her mom who was upset, it was her father, showing us that men are the ones to make the decision for the women in their life. So, because of this set up engagement and control that is placed upon her, Judith, wanted to follow her dream instead of being forced to live the role she was born into. So, she decides to pack and head out to London. “She had the quickest fancy, a gift like her brother’s, for the tune of words. Like him, she had a taste for the theatre” (Woolf, 365), and because of this Judith stands at a theatre door, awaiting to act and to be a part of the theatre. But instead “Men laughed in her face” (Woolf, 365), and even mocked her gender stating that no women could ever be in the theatre, let alone be an actress. This is Mary’s way of showing us how men view women, and how women were unable to get a job doing anything men were hired to do. Because even though it was bad enough she wouldn’t even be considered to get the job, the men made sure to put her down to make sure she knew her place in their society. This is when