There was an unpleasant air of assumption about the piece. I felt that its author perhaps already had a room, quite a specious one, and could not conceive the reality of people who did not have one yet. Before one may offer advice, one must be fully aware of the problem. Last night we were enjoying a creamy drink or two in the Most Pretentious Coffee Haus in Pensacola, and discussing various happenings. I brought up the subject of programming.
Programming is an act of creation, as are mechanical invention and the arts.
And male aggression should not be discounted, cliche though it is. Ultimately, Woolf's essay draws me back to those Edwardian women and their rooms. They are trying to gain a freedom which their granddaughters possess but which they themselves often never held. Some of them did receive it though, and for these lucky few my mental occupation shifts. No longer am I interested in their struggle to define themselves, but in its result.