Three Guineas (Harvest book)

Rating:
Summary: It All Boils Down To Money!
Review: Early feminism begins to emerge in this essay written by Virginia Woolf in 1938 as a follow up to her wonderful book "A Room of One's Own."

Woolf received requests for three guineas from a women's college, from a society for promoting professional women and finally from a group requesting the prevention of war. This essay is Woolf's answer to those requests. While it is extraordinarily cumbersome to read the bottom line suggests that a society which promotes only one aspect of itself and suffocates anything else will never be advanced enough to protect its own culture and intellect from revolutions and wars. And because the idea of fighting rests in the very aspect so highly promoted (male dominated society) all of the laws and practices contain this strife and will until other parts of society are allowed a fair voice. The interesting concept is how little society has advanced from this original idea and the strife continues to be a factor today. Woolf suggests war exists as a profession and an act that offers "happiness and excitement" for the very society it falls under. In fact she goes as far to suggest that men would deteriorate without the outlet of war to contend with. Woolf discusses patriotism as a purely male act because of the fact that women simply cannot be patriots in a culture that suffocates their voices and refuses to educate them (remember this is 1938). The disturbing thought is that women are now able to vote, work and fight in wars but our culture remains basically the same with white males in domination. How slow we are to advance!

Virginia Woolf believed that war could only be prevented through an educational system that stopped the glamorization of it and instead taught the inhumanity of the act. She found that poor educational systems actually taught better because they allowed art and creative processes to flow rather than the pomp and circumstance of wealth and the art of dominating, killing and capital acquirements. Sadly one of Woolf's most profound ideas applies today, "There we have an embryo the creature, Dictator as we call him when he is Italian or German, who believes that he has the right, whether given by God, Nature, sex or race is immaterial, to dictate to other human beings how they shall live; what they shall do." From a society of slavery, racism and suffering emerges a great savior promoting freedom? It seems an oxymoron does it not? Woolf continues, "And what right have we, Sir, to trumpet our ideas of freedom and justice to other countries when we can shake out from our most respectable newspapers any day of the week eggs like these?" The futurism of Woolf is astounding in this book as she finally suggests that women be labeled "outside" society so that her country is the entire world and her patriotism allowed to be the same. In a visionary profoundness Woolf manages to find an answer towards true freedom outside of the fascination of a few guineas.


Rating:
Summary: Women against war
Review: I gave this book 5 stars, not because I really liked it, but because it's interesting. Three Guineas is VW second book that is an argument and not fiction (the first is a room of one's own). It's about how women can help prevent war, and it says a lot of stuff, one of the things being to link male vanity to aggression. It's controversial, and a lot less pleasant than a room of one's own. It's weird in retrospect, too, because her argument stands in another time - before the second world war - and we've all changed since the holocaust etc. It says a lot about feminism, too, and women entering the professions and getting an education. Like I say, it's more aggressive than ARoOO, and this makes her less likeable. Whether or not you like it, though, or agree with what she says, it's an argument that should be out there. It's something that should be said.

Rating:
Summary: Women against war
Review: I gave this book 5 stars, not because I really liked it, but because it's interesting. Three Guineas is VW second book that is an argument and not fiction (the first is a room of one's own). It's about how women can help prevent war, and it says a lot of stuff, one of the things being to link male vanity to aggression. It's controversial, and a lot less pleasant than a room of one's own. It's weird in retrospect, too, because her argument stands in another time - before the second world war - and we've all changed since the holocaust etc. It says a lot about feminism, too, and women entering the professions and getting an education. Like I say, it's more aggressive than ARoOO, and this makes her less likeable. Whether or not you like it, though, or agree with what she says, it's an argument that should be out there. It's something that should be said.

Rating:
Summary: Not Perfect, But Interesting and Still Relevant
Review: If you've come in search of more Virginia Woolf essays after being blown away by A Room of One's Own, be warned - Three Guineas isn't as good as that earlier, astonishing essay. Nevertheless, a second-tier Virginia Woolf essay is still a Virginia Woolf essay, which is to say, clever, funny and dangerously sharp.

In Three Guineas, Woolf discusses three letters, each requesting a donation of a guinea, one from a society seeking to prevent war, one from a society promoting the employment of professional women and one from the building fund of a women's college. All worthy goals, and anyone else might have been satisfied to send them each a guinea and be done with it. Woolf, on the other hand, uses these three requests to launch a discussion about women's role in society and the effect that educated, professional women can and should have on it.

As in A Room of One's Own, some of what Woolf says is obvious or outdated. What's staggering, however, is how many of her observations remain fresh and relevant. Even more staggering is how accurately she predicts the changes that have taken place since society began making a real place for women - changes in society, but also changes in women. Although I knew much of what Woolf was saying, I doubt that I had ever seen these thoughts so clearly and intelligently formulated. As an added bonus, Three Guineas provides a brief but fascinating glimpse into the history of the suffrage movement (and its opposition) in England.

It is easy to guess Three Guineas' flaws. It is too long, too detailed, and ultimately not as revelatory and exciting as A Room of One's Own. It is, however, important to anyone interested in thinking about women's place in society, and the affect that each has on the other. Along with A Room of One's Own, it should be required reading for young women who (like myself) take their rights and freedom for granted.