A Room of One's Own

It has been well chronicled in this blog my search for an apartment. Inasmuch as I am young, fabulous, and intelligently broke, my funds have only allowed me to look at rooms and studios (**what is a studio but a glorified room?). My search is drawing on empty, and I have to be out of this apartment on March 31st. Despite that fact, I have found time to get in some reading.

Recently I read a classic piece of feminist literature, A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf. I enjoyed the book of course, and what a perfect time to have read this book. As I sort through my own male issues and read the issues that Woolf speaks of in the book, I found myself wishing that I could call Ms. Woolf, invite her for a coffee at Starbucks and show her the marvel (and catastrophe) of women today.

A lot of times, as women, we fail to truly appreciate how far our sex has come. How many options and choices we have now. I am a librarian...traditionally a woman's occupation...but I am studying to become a lawyer...traditionally a male occupation. I can shop at the best boutiques in New York and simultaneously have a vigorous political conversation - then go out and put the contents of that conversation into action. Reading how opinionated creative women have been driven to madness because they lacked the oppurtunities of men is so dismal a prospect; to say I'm overjoyed not to exist in that environment is an understatement.

Woolf's essay was seeking to address a group of women on the topic of, none else, but "Women in Fiction." Her advice: Write about something more serious than fiction; Don't let your sex dictate to you how you think and behave; and my favorite - All a woman needs is 500 a year and a room of one's own.

In her time, she was talking about 500 pounds a year, but we can say, for the new millenium, $500,000 a year. If I had $500,000 a year I could purchase many many rooms. I wouldn't even need that much, or even half! To be able to live in comfort without fear of roaches, rats, unsavory neighbors, and have the piece and tranquility that an ample bank account and comfortable surroundings provide would certainly be conducive to creative thinking, research, and philosophy.

All that I can sayis: I'm on my way. :)