Suggestions for Writing

1. Write an essay analyzing the rhetorical strategies Woolf uses in this speech to reach her specific audience. Pay attention to the way she uses the tools of the novelist, such as characterization, scene setting, highly textured and specific descriptive detail, and figurative language.

   Chapter 8 - Professions for Women - Suggestions for Writing: Write an essay analyzing the rhetorical strategies Woolf uses in this speech to reach her specific audience. Pay attention to the way she uses the tools of the novelist, such as characterization, scene setting, highly textured and specific descriptive detail, and figurative language.
2. Imagine that you have been invited to deliver a speech entitled “Professions for Women” to an audience of your peers, male and female. Cite Woolf to support your speech’s thesis, or propose a counterargument to Woolf’s position. Also, be sure to describe the audience and occasion of your speech.

   Chapter 8 - Professions for Women - Suggestions for Writing: Imagine that you have been invited to deliver a speech entitled “Professions for Women” to an audience of your peers, male and female. Cite Woolf to support your speech’s thesis, or propose a counterargument to Woolf’s position. Also, be sure to describe the audience and occasion of your speech.
3. If you have read any of Virginia Woolf’s fiction (either her short stories or the novels Mrs. Dalloway or To the Lighthouse, for example), discuss how this essay informs them.

   Chapter 8 - Professions for Women - Suggestions for Writing: If you have read any of Virginia Woolf’s fiction (either her short stories or the novels Mrs. Dalloway or To the Lighthouse, for example), discuss how this essay informs them.
4. In A Room of One’s Own, Woolf asks, what if Shakespeare had had a sister? She calls her Judith and considers whether circumstances would have encouraged or allowed Judith to write great plays. Write an essay comparing and contrasting the ideas and style of that essay with those in “Professions for Women.”

   Chapter 8 - Professions for Women - Suggestions for Writing: In A Room of One’s Own, Woolf asks, what if Shakespeare had had a sister? She calls her Judith and considers whether circumstances would have encouraged or allowed Judith to write great plays. Write an essay comparing and contrasting the ideas and style of that essay with those in “Professions for Women.”
5. In the final paragraph of her speech, Woolf says, “Even when the path is nominally open—when there is nothing to prevent a woman from being a doctor, a lawyer, a civil servant—there are many phantoms and obstacles, as I believe, looming in her way.” Write an essay in which you defend, challenge, or modify that statement with regard to women today in the United States or to women in another country where gender equality might be more problematic. Pay particular attention to what you see as the “phantoms and obstacles.”

   Chapter 8 - Professions for Women - Suggestions for Writing: In the final paragraph of her speech, Woolf says, “Even when the path is nominally open—when there is nothing to prevent a woman from being a doctor, a lawyer, a civil servant—there are many phantoms and obstacles, as I believe, looming in her way.” Write an essay in which you defend, challenge, or modify that statement with regard to women today in the United States or to women in another country where gender equality might be more problematic. Pay particular attention to what you see as the “phantoms and obstacles.”