Gabriela GrimaldiMs. SmithAP LiteratureMarch 4, 2014Virginia Woolf on the acquisition of feminine genius in the Victorian era “So it is naturally with the male and the female; one is superior, the other inferior; one governs, the other is governed; and the same rule must necessarily apply. good to all humanity. » Aristotle's quote rings particularly true in reference to the Victorian era. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, men were considered the dominant sexes. For this reason, “for most of history, Anonymous was a woman” (Woolf 51). Female genius was insignificant, if not nonexistent, in the century that Virginia Woolf lived, because it was entirely dominated by men. Her environment led her to explore the history of women in literature through an unconventional examination of the social and material circumstances necessary for the writing process. Virginia Woolf asserts that female genius cannot be achieved in a society that extols only the male desire for status and seniority, because it opposes the creativity, essential to women's education and independence, which promotes genius. The Victorian era perpetually changed the history of literature; Ironically, this was also a period in which men strongly defined the status of women. A woman was at the mercy of her father before marriage and after marriage she was dependent on her husband. Woolf asserts through her literature that men have historically demeaned women as a means of asserting their own superiority (Roseman). This masculine desire for status and seniority can be best illustrated in a series of Woolf's in-depth essays entitled "A Room of One's Own." In these essays, Woolf constructs a metaphor of a mirror in the middle of a paper... one side to beat another side, and of utmost importance to walk up to a platform and receive from between the hands of the director himself, a very ornamental pot. “Women have sat indoors for millions of years, so that in this time the very walls are imbued with their creative force, which has in fact so overloaded the capacity of the bricks and mortar that she had to attach herself to pens, brushes and business and politics. “There is no door, no lock, no bolt that you can put on the freedom of my mind. » By being deprived of their own room, women have little opportunity to rectify the situation. Although this is clearly a historical truth, Woolf's assertion was revolutionary at the time. It presented the achievements of women in a new and much more favorable light, and also forced people to realize the harsh truths about their society..