Women's Rights

Term Paper # 101260

English > Analysis
Women Studies > Feminism

Women's Rights

The paper examines Virginia Woolf's essay "A Room of One's Own" and Ama Ata Aidoo's "There Is No Sweetness Here".

1,409 words () | 5 sources | MLA | 2008 United States

Paper Summary:

The paper first examines Virginia Woolf's essay "A Room of One's Own", which looks at the imbalance of power and rights between women and men. The paper also examines Ama Ata Aidoo's story "There Is No Sweetness Here", which focuses on the repression of the African woman and the tension between Western and African cultural views. The paper discusses how these two stories personify the struggle for women's rights.

From the Paper:

"A series of lectures that was presented by Virginia Woolf not only had a remarkable story line but also a deeper meaning. Woolf was at the time considered a "'high modernist' and "was an advocate for both democratic inclusiveness and intellectual education." In bridging these two spheres, she forged a positive answer to one of her culture's most pressing concerns (Cuddy-Keane 1). This concern was the rights or lack thereof for women. Woolf achieved this distinction in her 1928 lectures to the Newnham and Girton Colleges on the topics of fiction and women. One of the most notable lectures that came from this time was the extended essay, "A Room of One's Own". This essay is sarcastically written about the imbalance of power and rights between women and men. During her delivery to colleges, Woolf was making a much bigger statement than the surface of this essay and others very similar alluded to. Woolf makes use of symbolism and suggestive roles in order to express her opinion on feminism."

Sample of Sources Used:

Aidoo, Ama Ata. No Sweetness Here. Harlow: Longman Drumbeat, 1970.
Cuddy-Keane, Melba. Virginia Woolf, the Intellectual, and the Public Sphere. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Dixon-Mueller, Ruth. Population Policy & Women's Rights: Transforming Reproductive Choice. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993.
Odamtten,V.O. The Art of Ama Ata Aidoo (1994), A. U. Azodo and G. Wilentz, ed., Emerging Perspectives on Ama Ata Aidoo, 1972.
Woolf, Virginia; A Room of One's Own. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1929