An Analysis Of Virginia Woolf's Feminism

Virginia Woolf had the epoch-making status in the West feminism thinking history. She had inherited the first wave of feminist demands for equal rights and political aspirations, especially the right to education and employment aspirations. Virginia Woolf thought that in the first half of the 19th century of British,what the women accepted was a kind of negative education whichlimited women's access to the free development,and made themtake the "feminine charm" as the goal and the marriage as the occupation.She believed thatwomen must get the power of employment to change this kind of situation; the economic security is the solid material foundation of the independent status of women.Virginia Woolf had experienced two world wars. She attributed the root cause of war to the patriarchal values.She pointed out incisively the value idea of the patriarchy: The desire to offense, to enslave and to possess caused the dictatorship and the war. She hada reflection of patriotism under the background of again capitalism world's war. In her view ,the status of women and men was seriously unequal in British at that time, the war was the result of the masculine will but actually requesting the female to undertake war's duty ,this is not equal. Woolf opposed firmlytothe women's attending the war. She said: "As a woman I do not have the motherland. As a woman, I do not need the motherland. As a woman my country is the whole world." She expressed clearly that the female must become "the outsider" of the war, andshouldhave the aloof manner to the war. She proposed the values of the outsider of women which was different to the men's values. The main idea of Woolf s poetics was: First, as a female to read means that she is aresistant reader, she must expose the false image in the work; Second, to track down the feminine literature tradition,and the history of the feminine literature; Third, to write the relations between women and women, pay attention to the female homosexuality literature; and the Fourth, to write out the suitable feminine sentence which is different to the masculine. All these aspects were inherited by Beauvoir's "women-centeredcriticism". Fifth, she proposed the controversial concept of"Androgyny".Woolf' sconcept of "Androgyny" mainly solved the problem of two levels, the firstwas the issue of gender and creativity, and the otherwas gender issues. Woolf believed that who have the "androgyny" in the minds were the most creative figures. Because "Androgyny" status refers to the unity of emotion and reason,it is a state of freedom of mind and the peace of mind, and a state in which the consciousness of men and women can beexchanged to each other. On gender issues, the "Androgyny" removed the traditional concept of the male and female whichwas dualistic, and put forward the construction of the self-selection point of view of gender construction. This theory caused controversy in the later feminist. Although Beauvoir had inherited the perspective of gender construction, andproposed the concept of "social gender" officially, in dealing with the attitudes of women writing to men, she stilltook the masculine work as the standard to measure women's work. Walter eliminated that the concept of "Androgyny"wasunisexual andmasculine, and itwas the product of Woolfs self-suppressed women quality. But School in Francethought that the"Androgyny" encouraged the gender differences. In the view of the lesbian feminist, the "Androgyny"transformed into a more radical "gender performance theory." Looking from the impact of feminist perspective, Woolf had pointed out that the values of the nation-state under the patriarchal were not always consistent to the women's. In the experience point of view, women paid more attention to the care and peace-loving. However, Woolf's point of viewwaslimited in a gender perspective but neglected the ethnic links between the class, race and the complex. The post-colonial Feminist mainly resolved this problem, on one hand, they pointed out the discourse hegemony in the white middle-class women of Western, and on the other hand they pointed out that thenationalism whichprovided the woman outlet haddefined women's status and the function at the same time. Especially in the era of globalization, the World Alliance of Women for Peace provided an alternative possibility of globalization. The post-colonialists had surpassed Woolf's "outsider"consciousness and put forward the possibility of women together. For example,Spivak thought that women of the world may establish a "strategy union", andIvar-Davis proposed a strategy of "horizontal joint". The concept "Androgyny" of Woolf had something similar with the Chinese discourse of "yin and yang harmony", and with the founding of new China, the establishment of the legal status of the "equality between men and women" had become a reality, the feminist in China had proposed a discourse of "dual nature of harmony". "Super sex writing" wasproposed by a writer Chen Ran, which was another product of Woolf's "Androgyny" in the Chinese context.