why are you REALLY at SMC?

For a moment, think back to your most stressful year of high school: Junior year. You've taken the tests, worked for the grades, participated in extracurriculars and visited perspective colleges, but why did you eventually choose Saint Mary's? What REALLY brought you to one of the nation's best liberal arts colleges? One thing I know for sure, is that it wasn't the boys...was it?

Virginia Woolf brings to light an interesting point throughout the second chapter of A Room of One's Own. Her interest in gender disparities starts as she observes that women appear to be more interesting to men than men are for women. Soon after, Woolf noticed the anger portrayed in her sketches, and connected it to the life of a woman in society. Modern male writings, according to Woolf, "had been written in the red light of emotion and not in the white light of truth" (32-33). The lack of positive portrayal of women was due to a man's lack of confidence. A man's superiority seems to be on the line in parallel with not only a woman's work, but life in general.

Woolf proposes the utility a woman gives a man socially and personally is a consequence of the "looking-glass vision". This "vision" serves as a reflective power to increase the confidence of males; without it, men are left, in a sense, powerless in a mixed gender society. Throughout history women have lied to and succumbed to the power a man has laid upon them; increasing their confidence and superior self-worth along the way.

Lastly, Woolf predicted the change in the role of woman in later times, OUR time. The liberal woman author foretold, "...in a hundred years, women will have ceased to be the protected sex. Logically they will take part in all the activities and exertions that were once denied them" (40). This quote, undoubtedly my favorite thus far, describes the essence of women in today's society. No more do we want to feel inferior or unappreciated by our male counterparts. No more do we aspire to fulfill their need as confidence boosters, but instead long to challenge them with our own intellect.

Therefore, as a SMC student, can you relate to Woolf's feelings? Do you think she was right? Are you subconsciously/consciously here to challenge, question and put an end to male feelings toward women in today's modern society?

j