Virginia Woolf - Professions for Women (e-text)

Professions for Women spoke of Woolf's struggle with “the Angel in the House” who frequently intervened in an effort to keep her writing in line with society’s view of women. The Angel told Woolf that as a woman writer, she must always “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.” The Angel kept getting in the way of Woolf’s writing, wasting her time, and provoking her until Woolf “caught her by the throat” and tried to kill her.

Woolf noted “Had I not killed her she would have killed me. She would have plucked the heart out of my writing.” The Angel was society’s expectation of what women should be - self-sacrificing, gentle, charming, flattering, and always willing to give of themselves for the benefit of others. Women were to rely on their pure, womanly virtues to take them through life and should never dare reveal their own minds.

Woolf went on to say the Angel “died hard” and the struggle continued as the “shadow of her wings fell on my page,” and she “heard the rustling of her skirts in the room,” in other words, the cultural limitations placed on women were always in the back of Woolf's mind. Woolf admitted that the Angel “was always creeping back when I thought I had dispatched her. Though I flatter myself that I killed her in the end, the struggle was severe…” “Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer.”

Woolf knew that in order to be a successful writer, she had to cast off society’s restrictions on what women should and should not write, and let her own thoughts and opinions come out. This was very hard for her as societal constraints were deeply ingrained in her. Woolf’s feminist outlook was a very unusual for her time. She challenged the norms and risked her female respectability by writing about topics never approached by women writers.