Woolf’s Wish a Century Later
Virginia Woolf dreamed of a world where every woman had a room of their own to create and be themselves. That was a century ago. Her iconic essay "A Room of One's Own" was published in book form in 1929. The estimated global population in 1927 is two billion. We just hit eight billion in 2023. If Virginia Woolf lived today, she'd be sharing the world with six billion additional people. Her beloved bustling London is now cramped and noisy; not every woman is able to afford a country cottage, then or now. Also, Virginia Woolf did not have kids.
I am a privileged, white, middle-class, middle-aged woman living in a condo in a reasonably large city. I do not have a country cottage to retreat to, although a plethora of busy cafés line my street. I have kids. Two boys and a husband who works from home. I have tried to figure out how to carve out a room of my own in my apartment. I have applied to strata to put a tiny shed on our large patio. I have considered trying to fit a loft bed in our bedroom so I could cordon off the area below it. I have attempted to make my own room divider to put behind me when I sit at my living-dining room desk. A room of my own? It's not going to happen until my sons leave the nest, if that ever happens in a future that is, well, you know. The bulk of my prime writing years will be spent at desks in the living-dining room and our bedroom, which I currently share with my youngest child...until he takes over my husband's office and they switch spots.
I'm lucky to have a desk space I can call my own. Many writers I know choose the living room couch or kitchen table. I won the lottery when I was able to put in a second, fold-down desk in our bedroom where occasionally I can go in and close the door to write, or, more commonly, to take a virtual therapy appointment. And I have to shoo away children from both desks if they are going to be at all personal with my chosen setting knick knacks, homemade motivational posters, books, etc.
The literal room of one's own is not going to happen for most women, I'm sorry to say Ms. Woolf (come on, if she lived today, she'd go by Ms. or maybe even Mx.). Now I haven't read the essay in a long while, but the heart of what I recall Woolf advocating for is what I realized recently is the heart of what I have been searching for my whole life: a safe space. Women and other vulnerable populations need to feel safe in a space that is theirs. It's true of me and it's true of the unhoused population, trans kids, everyone. A house is not a home until it feels safe.
My home is safe. It's in a low-crime neighbourhood, in a secure building on the second floor, in a country that is not currently at war on our own soil. I have racial privilege as a white woman that contributes to my sense of safety in my home. I feel physically safe here. That alone is a rare thing on this planet. But I don't feel emotionally safe, I recently realized. I never have, except maybe in therapy with my long-term psychologist. But still, I can't be in therapy all the time. I've tinkered with all my spaces constantly, and I realized, I'm trying to find that sense of safety, groundedness: home. Perhaps, the room Woolf was looking for wasn't physical. Perhaps it was a mentally safe feeling. She certainly lacked that as a woman with mental illness who was institutionalized against her will more than once. Ripped from her home and thrown into the asylums of the time. Her mind wasn't safe, nor was her home.
I feel safest with the people I have a secure attachment to and when I'm in conversation with them. When they are validating my feelings and experiences, when they are making space for me, whether it’s at my home, theirs, or a third location. I feel safe when I can trust everyone around me not to harm me, emotionally or physically. So, it's rare that I feel safe in a crowd (despite my previously mentioned racial privilege). One of my favourite things to do is have a good friend over to chat on my living room couch, usually over cups of tea carefully chosen from my tea wall.
I feel safest in conversation or even silent communion with my friends, who are mostly women and femmes. Woolf had that safe mental health space when she was with the women she loved (platonically and romantically) in her famous Bloomsbury group.
The modern call for a room of one's own, is perhaps not a call for a physical one but a mental one and a call for women to support each other in creating that space for each other. Most times I write next to a friend who is also writing, I feel safe in my creative journey. My friend has made space for me to have a room of my own, even if I am not alone behind a closed door.