Asked to write about the notion of being a New Woman, I was reminded of Virginia Woolf’s peroration, delivered by Pamela Rabe in A Room of One’s Own: ‘It is fatal for anyone who writes to think of their sex.’
I should sign off now then. Accept a quick defeat and review my career. For women’s magazines are gender concentrate.
I did, however, dust off my women’s library. A library of women writing about their sex. The Female Eunuch, The Second Sex, The Passion of New Eve, The Women’s Room, The Feminine Mystique … How could Woolf be right and still be a feminist?
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