HW 22: Patriarchy in England

In chapter two of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, Woolf discusses the topic of patriarchy. Patriarchy is where a father figure and males have authority and it refers to a social situation where men are dominant over women in wealth, status and power. At the time Woolf was writing her paper, England saw men as the dominate sex. In chapter two, Woolf discusses what women are not allowed to do. For example, women were not allowed to write books about men (page 27) and women must drink water while men drink wine (page 25) . Woolf wished that one day woman would be able to participate in the same activities as men and now they indeed do. Woolf stated,” The most transient visitor to this planet, I thought, who picked up this paper could not fail to be aware, even from this scattered testimony, that England is under the rule of a patriarchy” (Woolf 33). On the front page of the Boston Globe today, the President and the Dali Lama are featured on the front page. This could be considered to be patriarchy because our government is mainly made up of males. Every single President we have had has been male and only males have run for president except for Hillary Clinton.