“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” – Virginia Woolf  

The experiences of women have been intertwined throughout history with strands of resistance to restrictive laws and repressive social norms. Women have become fighters on the battlefield of change, from the mournful echoes of Roe v. Wade overturned to working to enlighten the educational hallways with their unwavering resolve. However, because of the limitations of gender, the walls of inequality still stand strong in the shadows of history, casting lengthy shadows on their potential. Far from the Western World sits the South Asian community where women fill the roles of homemakers, mothers, or wives. These roles limit their access to financial, educational, and social opportunities. Being born a girl in this community means preparing for marriage and only living for a man. As a woman, you are voiceless and your dreams are controlled by male authority figures, similar to the past centuries. So, if men were superior to women, then why is a woman writing a novel? Although Virginia Woolf published Room of One’s Own in 1929 and Nella Larsen wrote Quicksand in 1928, both shared truths about women’s societal conditions that are still relevant to our time. Woolf’s central argument in A Room of One’s Own is that women need both financial independence and a physical space of their own to create art and literature. The events in Larsen’s novel are situated in an overall context that includes talks about the social expectations of the time, particularly for women of color, as well as the roles and responsibilities of women. Even though the ink on these pages dried a century ago, the oppression tales created by Woolf and Larsen continue to plague South Asian women’s lives to this day. Even while progress has been made, the shadows of inequality still exist and will not go away completely.  

Immigrating from the villages of my motherland Bangladesh, I thought I escaped the ideas of this  close-minded society. A thousand miles from their home, my parents worried I would fall into the American way of life. They defined the lifestyle as free-thinking and immodest. As the oldest daughter, I could not ruin the image of a traditional girl. A man could dress as they wanted or be allowed to go out but my urge for adventure was delayed because it was not necessary to be outgoing as a woman. I was bound by a scarf, as covering my body was more important than my freedom. When I would go out, I could not stay long or had to have a male relative with me. While I missed out on many experiences I could have had, I was able to use the restriction to focus on education. Education holds great value to me, so I chose to go into the challenging STEM field. Apart from my passion for the sciences, this degree would give me the equality of my cousins who are in a similar field. The college application year proved me wrong. I was not allowed to apply to outside-of-state colleges. While my male cousins went on to live the traditional college life, I was supposed to stay back and fulfill the duties of a daughter while juggling college. I realized that the life I was living was not my own but the ideas of my parents. I did not have a room of my own. 

Imagine if Shakespeare were a woman; he would not have had the opportunity to excel as he did. Virginia Woolf introduced a fictional character “Judith” to pose as the hypothetical sister of Shakespeare. She suggests that if Shakespeare had an equally talented sister, she would not have been able to achieve the same level of success and recognition due to the societal constraints placed upon women. With success comes financial literacy, but women could not work for financial independence either. Instead, they would be laboring year after year and struggle to scrape together two thousand pounds, let alone “thirty thousand pounds.” The inequality in pay is not comprehended because they are not aware of what they deserve. They would be expected to be housewives and mothers. Woolf argues, “If only Mrs. Seton and her mother and her mother before her had learnt the great art of making money and had left their money, like their fathers and their grandfathers before them, to found fellowships and lectureships and prizes and scholarships appropriated to the use of their own sex” (Woolf 21). They continued to close opportunities for women to earn money. Even if they earn money, “the law denied them the right to possess what money they earned” because a man would be in control of the money in the household (Woolf 22). Men did the so-called heavy lifting and women were supposed to be as others perceived them, even if they did not fully understand women. 

Woolf explains that women are perceived as not having a character of their own: “no woman has any business to meddle” with any “serious business, farther than giving her opinion (if she is ask’d)” (Woolf 55). Women can only speak up when allowed to; other than that they sit still and cannot have a voice in matters. Woolf also proved this. Professor Von X voiced his perception of a woman author to be full of emotion and not the truth therefore contradicting her work. Woolf said, “If he had written dispassionately about women, had used indisputable proofs to establish his argument and had shown no trace of wishing that the result should be one thing rather than another, one would not have been angry either” (Woolf 34). A man’s discrimination against a woman’s work would not receive backlash because he is a man voicing his opinion. However, if a woman were to do the same, she would face harsh consequences, just as Miss West, “an arrant feminist,” would be facing for “making a possibly true if uncomplimentary statement about the other sex” (Woolf 35). The complaints of men opened a door of acceptance that a man does not control his thoughts. Woolf states, “I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me” to prove in writing freely even with criticism because that is all the opposite sex is going to do (Woolf 38).   

What does it mean to be a woman? Larsen approaches the perceptions through her character Helga Crane. Helga is constrained by her mixed race where she does not fully belong to either the Black or white community. Helga’s interactions with men, particularly Dr. Anderson, illustrate the gender dynamics of the era. She struggles to navigate the expectations placed on her as a woman, both in terms of her relationships and professional aspirations. Dr. Anderson insults Helga by stating that she has “dignity and breeding” and “good stock” due to her reputable family background and in doing so dehumanizes her (Larsen 54). When we think of breeding or stock we think of animals. So, Dr. Anderson’s use of such terms to convince Helga to stay at Naxos underscores the way racial and social hierarchies are enforced through such language and attitudes. Helga pushed back the controlling words of Dr. Anderson by giving a rundown of her “gambler father and destroyed mother.” She was not from the “good stock” of the family like the rest of Naxos. The Naxos environment stifles her intellectual and personal growth, leading her to search for something more meaningful and satisfying. The citizens of Naxos spend their time “hunting for the weaknesses of others, spying, grudging, scratching” (Larsen 53). The limitations of Naxos prevent her from realizing her potential and aspirations. Society also controls how a woman should dress. The clothing “black, brown, and gray were ruinous to them” and society claims that the “luminous tones lurking in their dusky skins” would disappear (Larsen 51). South Asian women still face the same controlling behavior when it comes to clothing. Little to less skin should show and covering your figure with a scarf protects one’s innocence. These statements serve as confirmation to Helga that she cannot stay at Naxos since she is different from the rest of Naxos. She advocated for herself as she began a protracted journey of awakening as a woman of color in her period. 

Nonetheless, the trend to push women to the margins of intellect and autonomy and reduce them to simple societal rules and expectations has endured across history’s pages. Both novels work to instill hope in the readers. Woolf advocates the idea that women, like men, are gifted with the capacity for intellectual curiosity in her plea for financial independence and a place of their own. Helga’s tenacious search for a place where she may truly belong, free from the expectations and judgments of others, is vividly shown in Larsen’s book. Larsen urges us to consider the limitations imposed by both racial stereotypes and the expectations of traditional gender roles as Helga moves between various environments and relationships. These stories of adversity echo down the halls of history, telling us that the path to freedom is still far from complete. Speaking on behalf of the South Asian women community, I got to share my significance to the themes. Their prospects and obligations are frequently restricted by traditional gender norms and stereotypes, which confine them to home settings and dictate behaviors. These standards restrict their opportunities for growth and freedom. As life goes on there comes new standards to follow, and as a South Asian woman, I look for ways I can alter the norm. Women will always have a certain battle of worthiness but as the sun sets on Woolf and Larsen’s chapters of advocacy, a new dawn rises with the promise of change. 

Works Cited

Larsen, Nella, The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and The Stories. Edited by Charles Larson. Reprint, Anchor, 2001. 

Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. Harcourt Inc, 1989