Assistant Professor

Department of English

Government Raza P.G.College,

 Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, India 

Abstract

The study of women's plight through the ages with special reference to A Room of One’s Own and The Second Sex reveals a long history of struggle against systematic oppression, gender discrimination and societal norms. This journey toward gender equality has seen various phases, from ancient times to modern feminist movements, each contributing to the ongoing quest for women's rights and empowerment. Long history of struggle against oppression and Marginalisation, however, it also showcases resilience agency and the continual push towards equality and justice. The historical context provided by analysing women's conditions across different period helps us understand the progress made and the challenges that remain.

The women's suffrage movement gained momentum with activist like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Candy Sarton advocating for voting rights women gained the right to vote in several countries by the early 20th century.

Women continue to fight for equal pay representation in leadership roles, and against workplace harassment. This paper shows the trajectory from severe subordination to a more empowered status, though challenges remain. Key text like A Room of one' Own by Virginia Woolf and The Second Sex by Simon De Beauvoir highlight the intellectual and social struggles women have faced and provide a foundation for understanding contemporary feminist issues. Continued advocacy and education are essential for advancing gender equality and ensuring that women's rights are upheld worldwide.

Keyword: Feminist, Empowerment, Suffrage, Human Rights

“A woman is shut up in the Kitchen or a boudoir and one is surprised her horizon is limited; Her wings are cut,then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly”(Beauvoir  660)

Women liberation movement was started to give voice to unheard female figures in U.S.A..Now the term feminism is applied to the above mentioned movement.Modern feminism is often linked to the another term ‘ women liberation movement' started in the 1960s in the USA. Further the term modern feminism is also linked with the establishment of a National Organization for Women in 1966. In the beginning women’s movements were devoted to granting voting rights.Till date feminism is devoted or dedicated towards social and political causes. The 19th century is one of the most significant periods in British history. Throughout the 19th and 20 th century literature was written about the position of women with respect to men.

However things began with the suffragette movement that was talking about the equality of rights between men and women.The aim of the feminist movement was to fight for equal opportunities for education and occupation as men.

The ideology of self made woman has not change a lot from woman who was once a wife , mother ,keeper of the house as Tennyson points out in his poem ‘The Princess’

“Man for the field and woman for the hearth:

Man for the sword and for the needle she:

man with the head and woman with the heart:

Man to command and woman to obey;

All else confusion. (Tennyson V, 437-441)

This paper will deal with the work of  two female writers , critics and theorists and will explore female voices on atrocities and subordination of women in  Virginia Woolf's Room of One’s Own and Simon De Beauvoir’ The Second Sex.

Virginia Woolf is one of significant literary figures of the twentieth century. She is generally known as a feminist writer however it should also be noted that she herself is dissatisfied with the terms she felt that the term feminist is overly concerned with women and women issues.Woolf is also known for the experimentation she made in the English language.She invented the concept of female sentence-articulating women voice and issues in literature, through his works she innovated with stream-of -consciousness,psychological and emotional motives of characters.Virginiawoolf reputation as a feminist writer reestablished after 1970 with the arrival of feminist criticism.

Woolf’s essay A Room of One’s Own is an avant -garde essay that points out the starts of women in society and literature.In the present essay A Room of One’s Own  Woolf’s lectures  were delivered at two women’s college at Cambridge University Newham and Girton College.Women and fiction was the topic of the lecture series delivered by Woolf.She expresses that if she  fulfills her  creative potential than she has to be financially independent and she requires literal and metaphorical room of her own.

These are two basic  necessities for writing creatively.Being a woman writer about women writing in detail,surprisingly she did not take that invitation happily.She was not much inclined to do so however she went up there to perform the assigned task to her(lecturing young women). Throughout her writing career Woolf remained preoccupied with women’s writing and role of women in history.She always narrates these issues & concerns is her diary, letters and essays.Women in writing remain unsolved problem throughout life and now she wanted her audience to join with her in solving this herculean task.

Woolf researches, ponders over the history of women’s writing .She took the persona of Mary Beton ,who had been invited like Woolf to give a lecture in oxbridge.Mary plans the essay by sitting by the side of rivers, ideas and thoughts regarding upcoming lecture were flowing into her mind.She gradually walks grass at the university as she could not sit patiently with the tumult in her head.When she was walking on the grass, then a masculine figures approach Mary.He was a Beadly-an officer,he asked Mary Beton leave this grass immediately as this path is for male scholars and fellows only.Mary should walk on gravel.

His face expressed horror and indignation.Instinct rather than reason came to my help,he was a Beadle;I was a woman.”(A Room of One’s Own 9)

She then decides to go to college library.She was at the door of the college library where she again rebuffed by an guardian angel wearing black gown rather than white wings and he wave Mary back and spoke to her that women are only allowed in college library when she is accompanied by the male fellow & scholars as furnished by the letter of the introduction.Library is hence cursed by a woman .The college administration is completely indifferent towards this matter.Meanwhile, persona of Mary has been shifted to British Library.She is browsing shelves at British library,she is looking up for history .In there she finds government policies, war reforms all of these are dominated by actions of men.Mythologies has women characters but it has little connections with reality.There were female characters in fiction but it also has little to do with real life.Woolf concludes that women need freedom and independence, if they thought to write creatively.This aspiration further requires financial well being and privacy. She talks about 16th century female characters in shakespeare’s plays uttering dialogues, but, however in reality women can hardly read, scarcely write or spell.The reason of the lack of women’s representation in history is the fictionalization that misrepresent female gender .Their non-representation in history has clearly taken a toll on female by representing them less important characters.Due to this women suffered from unreported past whereby their issues were ignored.

‘ I’ve often walked about the streets where people live all in a row and wondered what on earth the women were doing inside’ he said. Just considers: It is the beginning of the twentieth century and until a few years ago no woman had ever come out by herself and said things at all.There it was going on in the background ,for all these thousands of years, this curious silent unrepresented life of course were always writing about women-abusing them, or jeering at them, or worshiping them: but it’s never come from women themselves.I believe we still don’t know in the least how they live ,or what they feel, or what they do precisely.”(Voyage Out 215)

Further Woolf argues that despite the fact that women has room of her own  & money in her pocket still she faces challenges in writing fiction here she gives an example of Mary Ann Evans who is more famously acknowledged as George Eliot- male name and well known Bronte sisters who like their many contemporary women writers published their poems and fiction under male pseudonyms Currer,Ellis and Acton Bell. They were  horrified that theft will be judged according to their gender.Women writing will be judged sentimental,monstrous and according to the cultural perception how women should look ,perceive and behave. Additionally Virginia Woolf  points out that in those cultures women were writing but not in their own language.They were writing according to the male voice, no feminine language was available at that time women were writing according to the male language value system.

It is a challenging task to create and to write a language that is of her own values experience and interests.Add on challenge is to write new kind of sentence “ feminine sentence”

Woolf’s essay A Room of One’s Own is conversational in tone.It is enticing to read it .It is deeply engaging and woolf is a very skillful essayist. Essay comment on real women writers Aphra Bhen, Jane Austen, George Eliot,Three Bronte sisters Charlotte,Emily and Anne Bronte.But this essay is also known for stories,anecdotes, satire, tragic characters,.It is part criticism ,part fiction part history, part biography, part autobiography.In this way Woolf try to introduce conflicting literary ideas on women wrong.She argues that women writing fiction is not an outcome of genius but of a material circumstances.Before 19th century property laws, ownership of funds lack of domestic household ,lack of education ,denied women a place in history of female writers.

‘Why did men drink wine and women water? Why was one sex so prosperous and the other so poor? What effect has poverty on fiction? What conditions are necessary for the creation of works of art?’(A Room of One’s Own 26)

Even the most gifted women would would have remind mute due to lack of these things which are as follows education ,support and opportunity.This social economic and political powerlessness of women results in male dominance and marginalized women.Women have not been given space & opportunity in the world to think, to read and to become an important figure.Women from ages have been excluded from the society life and depended on her male counterpart for safety and security.

‘Have you any notion of how many books are written about women in the course of one year? Have you any notion how many are written by men? ”(27)

Women lacked historically both in materials and in time to pursue his dreams woolf prove this argument by creating an imagery character Judith Shakespeare sister of William Shakespeare.Judith Shakespeare does not have the same opportunities as Shakespeare had .In contrast to Shakespeare Judith doesn't have time to devote to study and read.She finds herself trapped at home .Judith metaphorical figure never wrote down her thought.Shakespeare’s success was not merely due to his genius but rather her was offer choices and opportunities so that he became famous.However Judith Shakespeare was devoid by all such possibilities and opportunities.

Silencing the female characters remains Woolf that historically women were surpassed and pressurized and not given the chances.Later in an essay entitled Room of one’s own imaginary characters Mary picks up a novel by Mary Carmichael an imaginary woman writes of the 20th century.

In daily life Mary Beton imagines herself in conversation with the imaginary novelist Mary Carmichael and encourages her to write about the 20th century.Women as they really are .She imagines herself walking with Mary Carmichael in London and gives her the accumulation of unrecorded life of women writers.

In last lines of the essay Woolf address directly to the listeners & encourages them stimulate them to go and write about the lost lives,unheardvoices.She encourages women at college to rewrite history as to add a supplement to history as uptill 20th century men were writing about women without knowledge them without interviewing them how do they feel or think men were wrong from theological point of view.Virginiawoolf was considered a pioneering lady in feminist criticism.She in her essay Room of one’s own also discussed about ideal of an androgynous aesthetic,in which an author would be able to write free from an awareness of their sex as male as female.

Simone De Beavoir operated in the twentieth century.She influenced whole generations telling them what it is like to be a women.She called the women the second sex as primary sex is always undoubtedly the male sex because it dominates the history culturally and politically.The second sex deals with the thing how women have been shaped over the period of life of their women has ro stand for themselves.They can do so if they can recognize themselves here the question arises whether they can recognize themselves? Do they know they Have found themselves? Because she finds that women are not who they really are.There are many accepted norms which are presented to them as fixed ideals. There was not even a single chance to oppose them or go against these rules.That is why their real self rarely comes across.

The book published in 1949.Till this period feminism has taken shape women got the right to vote but.It is very surprising that uptill now women did not even know themselves.It means they are unaware of their true self and identity.Regarding their movement they did not know  who is the enemy ? Why are they fighting? What is the aim of their fight.Are they fighting against patriarchy.Will they fall short in front of the male dominence.Will they get stuck in whirlpool?BeforeBeavoir women have been talking about working space, equality women’s rights etc.She goes into systematic account of each phase of women’s life, myth that float around women in culture.there were choices to be made.Each choice would determine the future.Women has insecurities regarding the choices she made.There were physical confinement where women have limited chances of movement and space.As men have the first hand experience of war and battlefield but women didn't have that because of restrictions controlling her physical movement. Psychological and intellectual confinement are also with physical confinement.It was considered that women lack capacity for intellectual development for education; these confinement creates various types of restriction on women.

She talks about middle class intellectual intelligent women.She explains from traditional women to modern women.She talks about new woman.It is said that The second sex is an imagination work.As in this work Beavoiur goes deep into the psyche of an Adolescent girl,a mother, an old woman.Further she said that a woman is judged by her appearance.In contrast to men.Male  has little to do with their clothes.

“The woman, on the other hand, knows that when people look at her , they do not distinguish her from her appearance: she is judged, respected or desired in relation to how she looks.”(Beauvoir 740)

It can be said that the second Sex is imaginary text.It is close to literary text, as it depicts a women who goes to work and do some random things Simone De Beauvoir goes into the fantasies of a young girl,than into the fantasies of Adolescent girl than mother where she goes in than she concludes that these are the things that coming back to her again and again.It hits hard.It is stark.It depicts clearly this kind of picture.She does not hypothesis to theorize on.Sheprojects a women in situation in which she herself is and choices which are available she explores all the choices one by one than dismantles each choice and argues that these choices are tailored for men These choice are governed by the custom which is again made according to men.She is also a french existentialist thinker and scholar she worked with Satre on the theory of existentialism.In her memoir,The prime of life (1960) she describes this period as one when history burst over men and I dissolved into fragments.I woke to find myself scattered over the four quarters of the globe, linked by every nerve in me to each and every individual.All my ideas and values were turned upside down.It was the period of rethinking and awakening in life where she  brought her own experience to include the opinion of other people which are around her.This also helps her in discovering the life of many women around her by the time of 1949 when she was writing The second sex..The second sex divided into two vols .The second sex chartes the lives of women the history of confinement, the myths around womanhood and the precarious situation women find themselves in and in various phases of their lives.The second volume of the book importantly explores the formative years of childhood, girlhood, adult ,matrimony, motherhood and elder age.In first volume she is dismantling the myth history and biological characteristics.The destiny women supposed to have ,how women have been represented so far in literature she is Critiquing women have been prevented in many works of male writers.

In this volume and in these stages through the cultural idea mediocrity is forced on women.The are subjected to mediocrity.They are made to believe inferior through education.In education also parents and teacher believe that women need less education and they are not able to gain knowledge so easily in comparison to male,They don’t have intellectual capacity for education.The result is as they are neglected in education they don’t score well the thesis gets established again that women are less intelligent than men they are inferior as far as intellectual capabilities are concerned.

In chapter fourteen The Independent woman Beavoir talks about independent woman.Chapter fourteen is kind of the conclusion of the book. This whole is interconnected and based on the cultural idea of women and how women are seen across cultures.

The second part is Independent women where Simone De Beavoir hails working women Independent women.She explains that in detail in this chapter fourteen .She begins this chapter with quote

“French law no longer include obedience among a wife’s duties and every woman citizen has become a voter;these civic liberation remain abstract if there is no corresponding economic autonomy;the kept woman-wife or mistress is not freed from the male just because she has a ballot paper in her hands;while todays customs impose fewer constraints on her than in the past such negative licenses have not fundamentally changed her situation: she remains a vassal, imprisoned on her condition.It is through work that woman has been able to a large extent to close the gap separating her from the male ;work alone can guarantee her concrete freedom.The system based on her dependence collapses as soon as she cease to be a parasite ;there is no longer need for a masculine mediator between her and the universe.”( 737)

Simone de Beavoir stresses the importance to work because if she will work alone she will build destiny for herself.She is imprisoned she says that women is a vassal, a slave who is bounded in chain of restrictions later in the book she says that woman a whether a wife or a mistress is a kept woman because she is not free, because she has ballot paper in hand or one right to vote is not going to end her sufferings:Economic autonomy or financial independence is the only thing which can help in her life.Monetary freedom will also opened new and promising path for her.She will achieve glory only when she will cease to be the slave or vassel.She stresses the need to work.Working outside is the guarantee of her concrete freedom.

On the working women and the complexity of this reality:

“Without a doubt, they  women are economically independent only within an economically oppressed class; and besides, tasks carried out in a factory do not free them from household chores”(738)

Here Simone De Beauvoir clubs feminism with the marxisttheory.She is moving in the direction of class fight, class oppression.This is not enough for women they get economic independence than they face another challenge i.e. class fight when men and women are working in factory devoting good number of hours but not gaining anything substantial and everlasting happiness. Here when women achieve financial freedom then she found herself in the neverending class struggle.Beauvoir class it double sort of marginalization.

When she states at home she ceases to grow at all, a woman should continue to aspire in her life and continue to progress in her life. Another Point is that when she discusses working women she also narrates her ordeal.Beavoir explains in detail about the stress and pressure working women face at both places-home and workplace.On one hand they joined the oppressed class of workers when they come home they are not free from household chores. And the result is overwhelming they have to do both the tasks but it leads them to exhaustion, confusion, tiredness and aggression and stress.It is sort of mutual trauma most of the problems and Illness are caused due to this.The expectations that are from women that they have to take care of house and children. It create a kind of mental pressure on them and the results are drastic.They have been destined to become a good wife and good mother as it was placed psychologically their conscious and unconscious mind by their mothers and elders.They have in their mind that they are lacking in their duties which are assigned to them after marriage.

Here Simone de Beavoir makes a comparison between the personal life chosen by women and the life one is destined or prepared for throughout different stages in her life.

A working woman is torn between the personal choice and destiny.She just can’t through the responsibilities out of the door.She has to follow the rules she is taught by her mother.she has joined workforce but she is not free as men is she has to look after kids ,she has to see if meal is cooked or not on the other hand men is free to roam anywhere after his work. He can go out and have dinner in any restaurant but women have to go back and take care of left out household chores because these are the things that are taught to her by her mother hence it is a double sort of oppression.

“The woman herself believes that her personal life (work life) does not dispense her from the duties she assumed in marrying;she does not want her husband to be deprived of the advantages he would have had in marrying a real woman.she wants to be elegant , a good housekeeper and devoted mother as wives traditionally are ,it is a task that easily becomes overwhelming. She assumes it out of both consideration for their partner and fidelity to herself”.(750)

Here Simone de Beauvoir also talks about the psychological confinement she is in since ages .She has developed a consciousness over a period of time- regarding motherly duties.If she is not real to herself she is not performing her duties diligently for which her mother has prepared her by society.She has grown with a fixation in mind with which she has faced through all stages.

She just can not discard as she is subconsciously programmed to believe in male superiority and to become underconfident women and a doormat for her husband.Society pressures women to remove intentionally from every stage but she wants to regain her right she wants to assure herself that she is not mediocre in any sense.Her intellectual capabilities are upto the brim .She can face the world on its own. Independent working women have to fight with herself in regaining her confidence. 

‘Most working women do not escape the traditional feminine world; neither society nor their husbands give them the help needed to become , in concrete terms, the equals of men .Only these women with political connections active in trade unions, who are confident in the future can give an ethical meaning to the thankless daily labor; but as women deprived of leisure time and inheriting a tradition of submissiveness,  It is understandable that women are just beginning to develop their political and social awareness”(738)

We can categorize notable female authors in to key themes as per their important works under the theme of feminism and gender inequality we can put Mary Wollstonecraft and Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir, the writers who have discussed Body image and sexuality we can keep the works of  Ana Nin and Margaret Atwood,Issues of mental health and self discovery has been prominently discussed by Sylvia Plath and Bell Hooks.Issues of Intersectionality and Race resonated in the writings of Toni Morrison and Adichie.Throughout history, female writers have addressed a wide range of issues affecting women, reflecting the social, cultural, and political contexts of their times. From the constraints of patriarchy to struggles for equality and empowerment, female authors have used literature as a means of exploring and articulating the experiences of women. 

Works Cited

1. Beauvoir,Simonede.The second sex(Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier trans.)Vintage Books London,2011.

2. Woolf,Virginia.A Room of one’s Own.Maple Press private limited India,2023

3. -----  Voyage Out.Penguin, 1970.

4.Tennyson,Alfredlord.Princess.1847.gutenber.org.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/791/791-h/791-h.htm#link2H_4_0005