HW 22: Chapter Two (Woolf) Under the Rule of Patriarchy

The definition of Patriarchary is a society in which fathers are the powerful responsible heads of their families and households, and by extention, a society in whcih men hold a disproportionately large share of power. After reading chapter two of, "A Room of One's Own" it was very clear that Virginia Woolf supported this very well in her writing as well. The point of her paper is how men have everything and women have nothing compared to them. She states, "Nobody in their senses would fail to detect the dominance of the professor. His was the power and the money and the influence (Woolf)." In other words, it is quite clear that man have all the important things and rights such as power and money and it seems foolish of a woman to try and fight for the same things. Due to this, she is talking and proving how England is a partiarchy. According to Virginia Woolf women seem to be the center or main source of everything that is going on or needs to be talked about, and it is the men that take the inititive to make it noteable and obvious to others. For example, in this chapter it was all about women and one prime situation in which they were in a divorce court and a particular female actress was being devalued. After I read this chapter, I went on the internet and went to the New York Times website. However, I found the site to be extremely different than what I had just read in chapter two. I personally believe that, it wouldn't give a "transient visitor to our planet the impression that the United States is a patriarchy" because it is too hard to tell. The website mainly had topics and pictures that were government related, as they should be. It discussed speeches, elections, and everyday events and situation between the United States and our foreign counterparts. One of the major differences that I would like to state, is that compared to the book the United States has taken great leaps and overcome a lot. In the first chapter of the book, the main character or narrator is unable to walk on a certain part of the path because at that time, women we're not allowed to walk there, only men. Being a woman myself, I know that although there are still some minor differences between men and woman, overall we have been given the right to vote, own property and have good paying jobs that are of the same equality as men. Eventually, I believe that patriarchy will be diminished to nothing.