Sunday, March 22, 2020

Professions for Women Essay Example

Professions for Women Essay When your secretary invited me to come here, she told me that your Society is concerned with the employment of women and she suggested that I might tell you something about my own professional experiences. It is true I am a woman; it is true I am employed; but what professional experiences have I had? It is difficult to say. My profession is literature; and in that profession there are fewer experiences for women than in any other, with the exception of the stagefewer, I mean, that are peculiar to women. For the road was cut many years agoby Fanny Burney, by Aphra Behn, by Harriet Martineau, by Jane Austen, by George Eliotmany famous women, and many more unknown and forgotten, have been before me, making the path smooth, and regulating my steps. Thus, when I came to write, there were very few material obstacles in my way. Writing was a reputable and harmless occupation. The family peace was not broken by the scratching of a pen. No demand was made upon the family purse. For ten and sixpence one can buy paper enough to write all the plays of Shakespeareif one has a mind that way. Pianos and models, Paris, Vienna and Berlin, masters and mistresses, are not needed by a writer. The cheapness of writing paper is, of course, the reason why women have succeeded as writers before they have succeeded in the other professions. But to tell you my storyit is a simple one. You have only got to figure to yourselves a girl in a bedroom with a pen in her hand. We will write a custom essay sample on Professions for Women specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Professions for Women specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Professions for Women specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer She had only to move that pen from left to rightfrom ten oclock to one. Then it occurred to her to do what is simple and cheap enough after allto slip a few of those pages into an envelope, fix a penny stamp in the corner, and drop the envelope into the red box at the corner. It was thus that I became a journalist; and my effort was rewarded on the first day of the following montha very glorious day it was for meby a letter from an editor containing a cheque for one pound ten shillings and sixpence. But to show you how little I deserve to be called a professional woman, how little I know of the struggles and difficulties of such lives, I have to admit that instead of spending that sum upon bread and butter, rent, shoes and stockings, or butchers bills, I went out and bought a cata beautiful cat, a Persian cat, which very soon involved me in bitter disputes with my neighbours. What could be easier than to write articles and to buy Persian cats with the profits? But wait a moment. Articles have to be about something. Mine, I seem to remember, was about a novel by a famous man. And while I was writing this review, I discovered that if I were going to review books I should need to do battle with a certain phantom. And the phantom was a woman, and when I came to know her better I called her after the heroine of a famous poem, The Angel in the House. It was she who used to come between me and my paper when I was writing reviews. It was she who bothered me and wasted my time and so tormented me that at last I killed her. You who come of a younger and happier generation may not have heard of heryou may not know what I mean by the Angel in the House. I will describe her as shortly as I can. She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draught she sat in itin short she was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others. Above allI need not say itshe was pure. Her purity was supposed to be her chief beautyher blushes, her great grace. In those daysthe last of Queen Victoriaevery house had its Angel. And when I came to write I encountered her with the very first words. The shadow of her wings fell on my page; I heard the rustling of her skirts in the room. Directly, that is to say, I took my pen in my hand to review that novel by a famous man, she slipped behind me and whispered: My dear, you are a young woman. You are writing about a book that has been written by a man. Be sympathetic; be tender; flatter; deceive; use all the arts and wiles of our sex. Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own. Above all, be pure. And she made as if to guide my pen. I now record the one act for which I take some credit to myself, though the credit rightly belongs to some excellent ancestors of mine who left me a certain sum of moneyshall we say five hundred pounds a year? so that it was not necessary for me to depend solely on charm for my living. I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her. My excuse, if I were to be had up in a court of law, would be that I acted in self-defence. Had I not killed her she would have killed me. She would have plucked the heart out of my writing. For, as I found, directly I put pen to paper, you cannot review even a novel without having a mind of your own, without expressing what you think to be the truth about human relations, morality, sex. And all these questions, according to the Angel of the House, cannot be dealt with freely and openly by women; they must charm, they must conciliate, they mustto put it bluntlytell lies if they are to succeed. Thus, whenever I felt the shadow of her wing or the radiance of her halo upon my page, I took up the inkpot and flung it at her. She died hard. Her fictitious nature was of great assistance to her. It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality. She was always creeping back when I thought I had despatched her. Though I flatter myself that I killed her in the end, the struggle was severe; it took much time that had better have been spent upon learning Greek grammar; or in roaming the world in search of adventures. But it was a real experience; it was an experience that was bound to befall all women writers at that time. Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer. But to continue my story. The Angel was dead; what then remained? You may say that what remained was a simple and common objecta young woman in a bedroom with an inkpot. In other words, now that she had rid herself of falsehood, that young woman had only to be herself. Ah, but what is herself? I mean, what is a woman? I assure you, I do not know. I do not believe that you know. I do not believe that anybody can know until she has expressed herself in all the arts and professions open to human skill. That indeed is one of the reasons why I have come here out of respect for you, who are in process of showing us by your experiments what a woman is, who are in process Of providing us, by your failures and successes, with that extremely important piece of information. But to continue the story of my professional experiences. I made one pound ten and six by my first review; and I bought a Persian cat with the proceeds. Then I grew ambitious. A Persian cat is all very well, I said; but a Persian cat is not enough. I must have a motor car. And it was thus that I became a novelistfor it is a very strange thing that people will give you a motor car if you will tell them a story. It is a still stranger thing that there is nothing so delightful in the world as telling stories. It is far pleasanter than writing reviews of famous novels. And yet, if I am to obey your secretary and tell you my professional experiences as a novelist, I must tell you about a very strange experience that befell me as a novelist. And to understand it you must try first to imagine a novelists state of mind. I hope I am not giving away professional secrets if I say that a novelists chief desire is to be as unconscious as possible. He has to induce in himself a state of perpetual lethargy. He wants life to proceed with the utmost quiet and regularity. He wants to see the same faces, to read the same books, to do the same things day after day, month after month, while he is writing, so that nothing may break the illusion in which he is livingso that nothing may disturb or disquiet the mysterious nosings about, feelings round, darts, dashes and sudden discoveries of that very shy and illusive spirit, the imagination. I suspect that this state is the same both for men and women. Be that as it may, I want you to imagine me writing a novel in a state of trance. I want you to figure to yourselves a girl sitting with a pen in her hand, which for minutes, and indeed for hours, she never dips into the inkpot. The image that comes to my mind when I think of this girl is the image of a fisherman lying sunk in dreams on the verge of a deep lake with a rod held out over the water. She was letting her imagination sweep unchecked round every rock and cranny of the world that lies submerged in the depths of our unconscious being. Now came the experience, the experience that I believe to be far commoner with women writers than with men. The line raced through the girls fingers. Her imagination had rushed away. It had sought the pools, the depths, the dark places where the largest fish slumber. And then there was a smash. There was an explosion. There was foam and confusion. The imagination had dashed itself against something hard. The girl was roused from her dream. She was indeed in a state of the most acute and difficult distress. To speak without figure she had thought of something, something about the body, about the passions which it was unfitting for her as a woman to say. Men, her reason told her, would be shocked. The consciousness ofwhat men will say of a woman who speaks the truth about her passions had roused her from her artists state of unconsciousness. She could write no more. The trance was over. Her imagination could work no longer. This I believe to be a very common experience with women writersthey are impeded by the extreme conventionality of the other sex. For though men sensibly allow themselves great freedom in these respects, I doubt that they realize or can control the extreme severity with which they condemn such freedom in women. These then were two very genuine experiences of my own. These were two of the adventures of my professional life. The firstkilling the Angel in the HouseI think I solved. She died. But the second, telling the truth about my own experiences as a body, I do not think I solved. I doubt that any woman has solved it yet. The obstacles against her are still immensely powerfuland yet they are very difficult to define. Outwardly, what is simpler than to write books? Outwardly, what obstacles are there for a woman rather than for a man? Inwardly, I think, the case is very different; she has still many ghosts to fight, many prejudices to overcome. Indeed it will be a long time still, I think, before a woman can sit down to write a book without finding a phantom to be slain, a rock to be dashed against. And if this is so in literature, the freest of all professions for women, how is it in the new professions which you are now for the first time entering? Those are the questions that I should like, had I time, to ask you. And indeed, if I have laid stress upon these professional experiences of mine, it is because I believe that they are, though in different forms, yours also. Even when the path is nominally openwhen there is nothing to prevent a woman from being a doctor, a lawyer, a civil servantthere are many phantoms and obstacles, as I believe, looming in her way. To discuss and define them is I think of great value and importance; for thus only can the labour be shared, the difficulties be solved. But besides this, it is necessary also to discuss the ends and the aims for which we are fighting, for which we are doing battle with these formidable obstacles. Those aims cannot be taken for granted; they must be perpetually questioned and examined. The whole position, as I see ithere in this hall surrounded by women practising for the first time in history I know not how many different professionsis one of extraordinary interest and importance. You have won rooms of your own in the house hitherto exclusively owned by men. You are able, though not without great labour and effort, to pay the rent. You are arning your five hundred pounds a year. But this freedom is only a beginningthe room is your own, but it is still bare. It has to be furnished; it has to be decorated; it has to be shared. How are you going to furnish it, how are you going to decorate it? With whom are you going to share it, and upon what terms? These, I think are questions of the utmost importance and interest. Fo r the first time in history you are able to ask them; for the first time you are able to decide for yourselves what the answers should be. Willingly would I stay and discuss those questions and answersbut not to-night. My time is up; and I must cease.

Thursday, March 5, 2020

80 Interesting Questions to Ask People in Any Situation

80 Interesting Questions to Ask People in Any Situation SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Have you been out at a happy hour with co-workers lately and had to answer the same mundane questions about that project you’re all working on? What about stuck at a dinner at a family reunion, asking your aunt for the tenth time about her college days? Or on a first date, powering through the typical first date questions - â€Å"Where’d you go to college?† â€Å"What do you do for a living?† If you’ve answered yes to any of the above questions, you know how frustrating and boring it can be to ask and answer the same questions over and over again. There’s nothing worse than having a boring, stifling conversation†¦ just as there’s nothing better than truly getting to know someone and learning something unique about them. In this article, I’ll help you revamp your small talk by giving you the 80 most interesting questions to ask people everywhere from a first date to a happy hour with coworkers. The 20 Best Questions to Ask on a First Date Ahh, first dates! Nothing can make or break a first date like conversation. These 20 funny questions to ask people will open up the channels of communication between you and your date and ensure that, however the date goes, it’ll certainly be memorable. Who inspires you? Who do you aspire to be like? Shark diving, bungee jumping, or skydiving? What’s your favorite cheesy pick-up line? Have you ever used it in real life? What’s your favorite Disney movie? What is the weirdest scar you have and how did you get it? Where did you and your best friend meet? Which of your accomplishments are you most proud of? What’s the weirdest Wikipedia rabbit hole you’ve stumbled down? Tell me about the best vacation you’ve ever taken. What’s your favorite physical attribute about yourself? Friday night- would you rather stay in or go out? Do you believe in ghosts? What piece of art (book, music, movie, etc.) most influenced the person you are today? Which would be harder for you to give up: coffee or alcohol? What’s the single best piece of advice you ever received? Who’s your best friend, and what do you love about him or her? What’s the greatest risk you’ve ever taken? If you had 24 hours to do whatever you wanted in this city, what would you do? What do you like about where you work? What hobby have you always wanted to develop? The 20 Best Questions to Ask Friends You've Known Forever We all have those friends we’ve known forever. You know, the ones that you make boxed macaroni and cheese with on Saturday nights for a Netflix binge. Even with those friends that we most love, conversations can get dull and repetitive. Here are some good questions to ask people for spicing up your conversations and getting to know your besties even better. Which house would you belong to in Hogwarts? What emotion do you experience the most? What was your first impression of me? If you were forced to open a bar, what would you name it? Would you rather be stuck in traffic for three hours, or never get Chipotle again? If you and I were to go to jail, what would it be for? If you could learn the date and time of your death, would you? What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done? Have you ever shoplifted? If yes, what did you take? What are the three things you would bring with you to a deserted island? What is one childhood superstition or fear you’ve never told anyone? What secret obsession do you have that I don’t know? If you could do anything for the rest of your life, what would it be? What makes you feel super loved? What do you lie most about? What's the silliest thing that you've ever gotten upset about? If you had to spend $10,000 today, how would you spend it? What’s your favorite viral video? Who’s your least favorite celebrity? If you could re-do one day in your life, what would it be and why? The 20 Best Questions to Get to Know Your Family Better Have you ever taken the time to really get to know your parents? What about your grandparents? Aunts, uncles, cousins? I’m talking beyond their little pet peeves about putting the dishes away or folding your laundry. Consider asking your family members these questions about the next family get together. You’ll be surprised what you might learn. Did you have a nickname when you were growing up? If so, what was it and where did it come from? Where was your first home? Were you named after anyone? What were your earliest memories of your home? What was your favorite bedtime story as a kid? What was your high school experience like? What clothing fads did you love as a kid? Did you like school? Did you and your friends like to hang out anywhere special as a teenager? Do you remember your first date? Describe your wedding ceremony. What was an unusual thing your children did when they were very small? What historical moment stands out most in your memory? What did you find most difficult about growing up? Were your parents strict or lenient? Do you remember your grandparents or great-grandparents? What were they like? Have you ever been in a serious accident? Name a good friend you’ve known the longest. How many years have you been friends? If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be? If you had the opportunity to erase the last ___ years of your life and go back to age 18, would you do it? Why or why not? The 20 Best Questions to Ask Your Co-Workers Work. You spend hours there every week. But how well do you really know the people you’re there with every day? Fostering strong relationships with your co-workers is a great way to make your work experience more enjoyable. Try these funny questions to ask people the next time you’re gathered around the water cooler on break. What movie or book character do you most identify with? When are you happiest? What more are you wanting from your career right now? If you were to start a company from scratch, what would be its core values? What stresses you out the most at work? What would a perfect day look like for you? How would you spend a million dollars? If you could choose to remain an age forever, what age would you choose? What’s your favorite sport to watch? What was your most recent Netflix binge? What was the best thing that happened to you last weekend? If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? What’s the one skill you think everyone should have? Do you consider yourself artistic? Who was your most influential schoolteacher and why? What music would you recommend for me to listen to while I work? What would be the title of your autobiography? Do you have a favorite season? What’s the fanciest event you’ve ever been to? If you could go back to one historical event to witness it, what would it be and why? The Bottom Line: Questions to Ask People to Get to Know Them Conversations don’t have to be rote and boring! Use these 80 questions to spice up your next first date or family dinner. Use conversation as a way to better get to know the people in your life†¦and don’t forget to share about yourself, too!