Clearly one of the central themes of this excellent essay
is the way in which gender inequalities are presented as preventing equal opportunities.
The Enlightenment, that argued that all men were equal and thus presented a powerful
argument against class distinctions, was seized by women and used to argue against
gender inequality. The basic idea of this work is therefore that women have just as much
potential and intellect as man if they are given the same educational rights and
opportunities that men have. Woolf argues that the reason why there are so few great
women authors in history is because of the way in which a patriarchal society
discouraged women from pursuing such a route by not providing them with an education and
forcing restricting roles upon them. Note how Woolf refers to the fate of such women who
desired to write:
When, however, one reads of a witch being
ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very
remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on teh track of a lost novelist, a
suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Bronte who dashed
her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with teh
torture that her gift had put her
to.
By presenting thwarted
genius being expressed in madness, Woolf actually strengthens her case about the plight
of women who would be artists. It is by imagining the fate of Shakespeare's sister and
the way that she was shunned and faced such opposition to writing that Woolf makes her
case. Women clearly lacked equality of opportunity, which resulted in a Canon of
literature dominated by men thanks to the patriarchal society that privileged them over
women.
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