Female Students’ Enduring Struggle for the Room of Their Own

Abstract

Drawing inspiration from Virginia Woolf's call for financial independence and creative space for females in her seminal essay, A Room of One's Own, this study utilizes data from an easily affordable university to illuminate the persistent challenges and aspirations shaping the contemporary pursuit of personal and academic autonomy among women of 21st-century in higher education. Woolf argued that social and material conditions, such as leisure time, privacy, and financial independence, are essential for creative writing. Historically, women have been consistently deprived of these essential prerequisites. Data collected from tertiary-level students in the middle to lower-middle economic classes show that the situation has not changed significantly. Unlike literary creative productions, their study and achievements are often hindered by the absence of necessary prerequisites. Overcoming these obstacles requires raising awareness, providing proper education, and enabling individuals to achieve financial independence.