Virginia Woolf

I thought it was interesting how Virginia Woolf explained the life of Shakespeare’s imaginary sister. During Shakespeare’s time women were not allowed to act in his plays. Shakespeare hired young men to play the roles of women in his plays. That shows you the role that women played in the society around this time. Women were not given a voice or the same opportunities that men were given. Woolf explains that it would be impossible to have a woman with Shakespeare’s genius during this time. This would be impossible because women were not educated nor were they able to become an artist. Woolf also explains that in Shakespeare’s plays, the way he portrayed women was the opposite of how they were treated during that time. In his plays women played very important roles. In society women could hardly read or write. I thought that this was interesting.
Woolf also highlighted that women were not on the “shelves where history stands”. By this she meant that women are rarely in the history books. She explains that history scarcely mentions women. There are no diaries and very few letters written by women in history. This meaning, that women had no voice. Men would wonder why a woman needed to write.
I have never stopped and thought about the feelings of a woman artist during that time. We usually talk about women wanting to enter the workforce. We never think about how women were not able to express their creativity, because that is just as important as being able to be educated.