His & Her Writing Spaces

If I were to ask you to pen a novel, the majority of you could do it.  Even though everyone has a different amount of writing talent, we all do have the ability to write (or we would not be upper level university students!).  

What if I then split the class into two groups - the men and the women.  I then tell each group that I want a novel of 120,000 words by the end of the month.  I then give the men and women different "extracurricular" duties.

The women are to do housework, handle children, take care of the shopping, cook three meals per day, and attend their husbands.  

The men are to work wherever they like.  They may even choose writing as their career and may use their "work time" to pen the 120,000 word novel.  Their duties include light yard-work, handling finances, minor household repairs, and keeping up with their acquaintances.  

Even though the division of labor is slightly unbalanced, I'd be willing to bet that most of the women in this class could still pull of the 120,000 word novel.  The men, who have much more time, obviously could pull it off.

But, what if I added something more?  What if I asked for a good novel?  A creative and intelligent piece of art?

Then, what if I give each of you your own writing space to help out.  Each man may have the following room in which to work:

His Writing Space

   

Each  woman may have the following space in which to work:  

 Her Writing Space

      

Who do you think will pen the best novel - the men who have their own space and plenty of time, or the women who have a desk in the corner and very little time?

Obviously the men would probably pen the best work.

This is exactly what Virginia Woolf was talking about when she said that in order for a woman to be a good fiction writer that she must have "a room to her own".  In Woolf's time, women did not have the privilege of having their own rooms, while the men did.  Women also had less time to write because they had more responsibilities.  Woolf argues that this is the reason why most women who did publish in those days published work of a lesser quality than their male counterparts.  She argued that women did not produce inferior work.  Instead, they were never given a fair chance to begin with.