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I didn’t write about Three Guineas because I am already behind (struggling to catch up despite going to France tomorrow for 10 days).  The essays were brilliant and relentless.  They range and weave over so many topics, they seem to create a large tapestry of women’s lives in that society, in that time. It is full of accurate and lively detail. I accept it as true. Throughout there is a sense that the immediate subjects—the daughters of educated men—has been so ridiculously suppressed that they are now dangerous pressurized.  When they rise up, who knows that will happen.   

What makes women a “community” may be sex but may equally be a history of a marginalization with certain unique characteristics based on gender both as internalized by women themselves and as judged and assigned by men.  Woolf explores the illogic thoroughly and with bitter humor.   We have been “other” in a way different from other “others” because sex differences are like chromosomal pairs, mirror images, shadows.   Even when acknowledged to be educated, strong, noble, and right women were still expected to subordinate their claims for the good of humanity.  Misogyny expresses it but doesn’t explain it. In fact, misogyny is often strongest when woman begin to assert their strength.

What happens to that notion of female community when restraints ease and opportunities increase?  Doesn’t it seem obvious that women are as bloodthirsty, competitive, and grasping as men, educated or uneducated. How ironic that with increased education and opportunity we now have women in the military supporting combat in practically every way.  Do we argue that they should be combat soldiers too if they want?   If we do not, it can only be because we don’t think anyone should be fighting a war.  And that is a different discussion.

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