... the patriarchy, which ruled over many western societies, would have ceased to exist. To be precise, writing was a venture entirely off limits to women. As a result, writers, such as Virginia Woolf, explore the reasons as to why intellectual growth was a strictly androcentric concept. Namely, in A Room of One's Own, she holds that an overwhelming amount of literature created prior to the ... eighteenth century is predominantly male-written (Woolf 55), subsequently providing a sound explanation for women's consistent exclusion. Here arises the problem of society's perpetually accepted beli...

• Word Count: 1286
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography

... prolonging progress towards men and women being considered equal. In male literature, numerous ways to keep unequal roles were to stereotype women and make it apparent that men and women play very different roles in life. On page 632, Rich writes, "And there were all those poems about women, written by men: it seemed to be a given that men wrote poems ... of women's criticism as a consideration when he chooses his materials, his theme, his language. But to a lesser or greater extent, every woman writer has written for men even when, like Virginia Woolf, she was supposed to be addressing...

• Word Count: 1531
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School