A Room of One's Own | Historical Context

A Room of One's Own Historical Context

British Universities and Women

Cambridge and Oxford universities, each made up of various colleges, are Britain's oldest and most well-known universities. Both universities were established in the early thirteenth century although both institutions had been active as centers of learning well before their official establishment as universities. In 1869, Cambridge's Girton College became the first British college to accept women students. In 1871, Cambridge established a college specifically for women, Newnham College. Girtonand Newnham Colleges are where Woolf delivered the two lectures on women and fiction that grew into A Room of One's Own. The' 'Oxbridge" of Woolf s book refers to Cambridge and Oxford, and so refers to bastions of male education in general.' 'Fernham," the fictional women's college depicted in Woolf s book, is an obvious allusion to Newnham.

Feminism

There have always been men and women who have decried women's second-class status in Western societies. But feminism as a viable and...
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