As time progresses, society's attitude toward the differences in gender capabilities and characteristics is becoming more egalitarian and fairer. Women today are doctors, lawyers, and multi-millionaire entertainers and generally feel more a part of human society than they did in the past. In Victorian England, however, and in the early days of America, the role of women in traditional society cramped their ability to express themselves freely by exploring their interests and attaining independence. Women were largely confined to keeping up the domicile. Such a creativity-stifling phenomenon still lingers in some forms to this day. This paper will examine the ways in which the legacy of male dominance of women has impeded and to some extent still impedes women from expressing themselves through their interests.
In her speech, "Professions for Women," Virginia Woolf outlines from her perspective as a writer how the legacy of female submissiveness hampered her work when she was beginning to write for a newspaper. For instance, when Woolf was first reviewing books written by male authors, she felt tempted by the past zeitgeist of passive women to "be tender; flatter; deceive" (Woolf 235). Woolf describes the force compelling her to use softer, less direct language as the Angel in the House. She imagines that this spirit was created by years of women working as the selfless, caring, and pure housewives of the nineteenth century (234). Woolf disdains how the Angel inhibited her writing and she recounts how she had to figuratively kill this creature so that she could write what she felt was necessary. The urge to be femininely tactful did not allow her to have "a mind of (her) own...expressing what you think to be the truth about human relations, morality, sex" (234).
Woolf conquered her demon, however, and was able to express herself in her own way. She admits that she still struggles to express everything about her existence a...