Thank you for writing this - I desperately needed to read this today, hours after Herr T issued the grand proclamation that he would apply a 100% tariff to movies made outside the States. My mind immediately turned to Molly Manning Walker, Raine Allen-Miller, Thea Sharrock and so many other women filmmakers. On the small screen, I wonder about Sally Wainwright, and whether or not we will even be able to access BBC here. And then I think about books by Elena Ferrante, Annie Ernaux, and yourself, and I naturally wonder/predict the tariffs that will be slapped on publishers and distributors of foreign editions (this will be next, I'm certain, even though companies like PRH/Bertelsmann are based abroad). He's a lunatic, for sure; we know this. But the women who enable him -- hiding behind their gigantic crosses, waving their T-edition "official bibles"-- are a different breed entirely, and I find myself looking for Woolfian characters who represent them. Terrible time here. I will be going back to read Mrs Dalloway again tomorrow, in one day.
Yes, I immediately started worrying about the impact of my beloved British shows and films along with the others you mention. This on the heels of attacking NPR and PBS and so much else. I feel at the end of my rope most days. The writing and solidarity on here keeps me going.
Definitely going to re-read it after reading this piece. I also remember being outraged in 1975 needing to buy a car to travel to my first post as a teacher in a rural location & despite having proof of a job and income as a single woman my father had to stand guarantor for the loan.
The sex discrimination act didn’t come in until 1976 and took a while to have impact and today in 2025 there is still so much more work to do to avoid slipping backwards.
To echo so many of your readers, THANK YOU for this essay. 15 years ago a woman I met at the Denver, CO Virginia Woolf Conference became a friend. Together we set out to read every word Virginia Woolf wrote, and in just two years of reading and talking long-distance about the amazing things Woolf had to say and the amazing way she said them, we accomplished our task. We still read together and talk on the phone about books we love and books we wound up hating. But those two years of VW were the highlight of our time together, exploring Woolf's words, her mind, her extraordinary prescience. I'm so glad today for the reminder of why that time and Woolf's words opened my world wide. Thanks again.
Thanks for this strengthening and empowering piece. You remind me that I may only have the weak and feeble body of an old woman, but I have the words of a fiery dragon when I'm brave enough to speak up.
I am with you. I am 75 now and getting bolshier by the day. I remember my talented mother whose father denied her higher education and sent her off to be a secretary. She got her own back on him by marrying a man who took her out of the US to the UK at the break of WW2. All her creativity went into her cooking, homemaking and friendships, all of which she excelled at, but she ended up an alcoholic in later life. We need to think long and hard about what we really, deeply desire both for ourselves and our world - and then do everything we can to make that possible.
Thank you for writing such a powerful and much needed reminder. Every person needs to read this and consider how far women have come in such a short time and how easily it could be revoked. Thank you!
I had to opt for the not very popular Women's Studies module in my Eng Lit degree to get to read any Wolf. That was 1988.
My daughter recently picked a copy of A Room Of One's Own off my shelf and slipped it into her bag. I smiled. We're getting there - as you say, so much has been gained in just a century.
But like you I'm terrified. Rampant Capitalism, the greedy son of Patriarchy, is desperately clawing back our gains and I'm beginning to feel pretty helpless and hopeless.
Yes, Yes and Yes... I nodded again and again to what you say here, and to what Virginia said in that 100 year old, timeless novel..
Reading that book and also A Room of One's Own and well...so much else by her, and being reminded of it all here by you is a wonderful, valuable thing.
Sorry I cut myself off. It was 1962/63 and To The Lighthouse was on my first year English course at the University of Toronto. I loved it, still recall those moments of being completely astonished by the narrative method. The astonishing dinner party, and the growly husband reciting from Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’! I’m going to read that again too.
Thank you for writing this - I desperately needed to read this today, hours after Herr T issued the grand proclamation that he would apply a 100% tariff to movies made outside the States. My mind immediately turned to Molly Manning Walker, Raine Allen-Miller, Thea Sharrock and so many other women filmmakers. On the small screen, I wonder about Sally Wainwright, and whether or not we will even be able to access BBC here. And then I think about books by Elena Ferrante, Annie Ernaux, and yourself, and I naturally wonder/predict the tariffs that will be slapped on publishers and distributors of foreign editions (this will be next, I'm certain, even though companies like PRH/Bertelsmann are based abroad). He's a lunatic, for sure; we know this. But the women who enable him -- hiding behind their gigantic crosses, waving their T-edition "official bibles"-- are a different breed entirely, and I find myself looking for Woolfian characters who represent them. Terrible time here. I will be going back to read Mrs Dalloway again tomorrow, in one day.
Yes, I immediately started worrying about the impact of my beloved British shows and films along with the others you mention. This on the heels of attacking NPR and PBS and so much else. I feel at the end of my rope most days. The writing and solidarity on here keeps me going.
Definitely going to re-read it after reading this piece. I also remember being outraged in 1975 needing to buy a car to travel to my first post as a teacher in a rural location & despite having proof of a job and income as a single woman my father had to stand guarantor for the loan.
The sex discrimination act didn’t come in until 1976 and took a while to have impact and today in 2025 there is still so much more work to do to avoid slipping backwards.
Thankfully in 1993 you were on the curriculum for Eng Lit at Edinburgh Uni - I am grateful for your words.
To echo so many of your readers, THANK YOU for this essay. 15 years ago a woman I met at the Denver, CO Virginia Woolf Conference became a friend. Together we set out to read every word Virginia Woolf wrote, and in just two years of reading and talking long-distance about the amazing things Woolf had to say and the amazing way she said them, we accomplished our task. We still read together and talk on the phone about books we love and books we wound up hating. But those two years of VW were the highlight of our time together, exploring Woolf's words, her mind, her extraordinary prescience. I'm so glad today for the reminder of why that time and Woolf's words opened my world wide. Thanks again.
Thanks for this strengthening and empowering piece. You remind me that I may only have the weak and feeble body of an old woman, but I have the words of a fiery dragon when I'm brave enough to speak up.
I am with you. I am 75 now and getting bolshier by the day. I remember my talented mother whose father denied her higher education and sent her off to be a secretary. She got her own back on him by marrying a man who took her out of the US to the UK at the break of WW2. All her creativity went into her cooking, homemaking and friendships, all of which she excelled at, but she ended up an alcoholic in later life. We need to think long and hard about what we really, deeply desire both for ourselves and our world - and then do everything we can to make that possible.
Please don't stop writing....we need it so much...thankyou.x
Is English Literature still on the curriculum?
Thank you for writing such a powerful and much needed reminder. Every person needs to read this and consider how far women have come in such a short time and how easily it could be revoked. Thank you!
What a gift, this essay. Thank you Thank you! VW is the mother of us all....and continues to save us every time we call her name.
I had to opt for the not very popular Women's Studies module in my Eng Lit degree to get to read any Wolf. That was 1988.
My daughter recently picked a copy of A Room Of One's Own off my shelf and slipped it into her bag. I smiled. We're getting there - as you say, so much has been gained in just a century.
But like you I'm terrified. Rampant Capitalism, the greedy son of Patriarchy, is desperately clawing back our gains and I'm beginning to feel pretty helpless and hopeless.
Yes, Yes and Yes... I nodded again and again to what you say here, and to what Virginia said in that 100 year old, timeless novel..
Reading that book and also A Room of One's Own and well...so much else by her, and being reminded of it all here by you is a wonderful, valuable thing.
Thank you, thank you! I needed to read this column this morning. Virginia Woolf is a light in the darkness. And so are you.
I will dig out my copy, read it in a day, and re-read this. Excellent words.
Monk's House in East Sussex so worth a visit.
Mrs. Dalloway’s interior life gave me permission to think anything, anything at all, as a blooming writer of 25. I am forever grateful for that.
Virginia Woolf was not on the University curriculum for English Literature in 1980? Wow! yes, thank you , Virginia, and thank you too, Jeanette.
Where exactly was it not on the curriculum? I read Wolfe in the 60s
Sorry I cut myself off. It was 1962/63 and To The Lighthouse was on my first year English course at the University of Toronto. I loved it, still recall those moments of being completely astonished by the narrative method. The astonishing dinner party, and the growly husband reciting from Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’! I’m going to read that again too.