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Lo que Virginia Woolf dijo de las MUJERES y NADIE quiere ESCUCHAR — Transcript

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0:00Was Virginia Woolf a genius, a
0:01one-of-a-kind feminist, or just a
0:03class-detached aristocrat? In this
0:05video, I don't aim to build a biography
0:07or demonize Virginia Woolf; rather, I
0:09will attempt a situated reading of one
0:11of the greatest feminist thinkers of
0:13the last century within her context.
0:16Hello, my Lanteris. You surely know
0:19Virginia Woolf for her greatest work, A
0:20Room of One's Own, something of a Bible
0:22for feminism. A text that, at the
0:26beginning of the 20th century, proposed
0:28the need for women to have our own
0:30spaces and means to think and produce
0:32academically, but one that has been
0:34heavily criticized because, unlike
0:36other feminist thinkers, she conceived
0:38feminism, her activism, and her
0:40literary production from a pedestal of
0:42class, being a wealthy woman in England
0:44, a woman who didn't have much of a
0:46decolonial perspective, a woman who
0:48struggled a bit to separate herself
0:50from her privileges. That is why I
0:53propose to make, as I said a moment ago
0:55, a situated reading, understanding her
0:57in her context. Furthermore, I feel
0:59that A Room of One's Own, which is her
1:01most important text, circulates a bit
1:03without context or argument, as if it
1:05remained just a slogan of "a room of
1:07one's own," and the nuances that this
1:09work can tell us about feminism from
1:11the beginning of the last century are
1:13lost. It is very interesting to think
1:16about Virginia Woolf because she was
1:18radical in thinking about these axes
1:20related to gender and the "woman
1:21question," but she was somewhat blind
1:23to everything having to do with race,
1:25class, and colonialism. Virginia Woolf
1:31was born in 1882 in London, England,
1:34into a very aristocratic family.
1:37Aristocratic, but also intellectual.
1:40Virginia's father was a very well-known
1:43intellectual in England. He had one of
1:47the most complete libraries of his time
1:49, but it was still a Victorian home.
1:52Virginia was born at a time when
1:54everyone was quite prudish. In England,
1:57decorum, respect, and discretion
2:00prevailed. At the same time that there
2:03was a lot of intellectual and academic
2:05production, she lived in a duality at
2:07home, because she had a father who was
2:09a super-recognized intellectual, but it
2:11was a fancy, uptight, posh family—as
2:13we would say in Argentina—that,
2:15although it claimed to be very modern
2:17and free, in her case, because she was
2:19a woman, she didn't have many freedoms.
2:22Virginia wrote a lot about her family
2:23and about how they made her feel. She
2:26recounts in her writings that her
2:28mother, Julia Stephen, was a kind of "
2:30angel in the house," a woman whose
2:32destiny was to be in charge of
2:34household chores. She loved her mother
2:37very much and suffered a lot because,
2:39in the end, her mother was in charge of
2:41everything related to the household and
2:42caregiving, eventually ending up a
2:44submissive woman. On the other hand was
2:47Leslie Stephen, her father, who, as I
2:49told you, was an intellectual, but
2:50Virginia speaks of him as if he were a
2:52dictator, a tyrant, a guy who had fits
2:54of rage. She remembers him as an
2:57oppressive presence in her life because
2:59, although he was an intellectual and
3:00placed great importance on knowledge,
3:02he did not let Virginia study. His sons
3:05, of course, were allowed to, but she
3:07was not. She said her house was
3:09symbolically divided between this idea
3:11of the freedom of being an intellectual
3:13, but the conservatism of being a
3:15traditional family where women had no
3:17recognition at all. She says her house
3:19had two floors, the ground floor and
3:21the upper floor. On the ground floor,
3:24she had to be a good girl who received
3:26guests, served tea, was polite, didn't
3:28talk back, and looked at the floor. She
3:32had to be pleasing to the eye, but
3:34upstairs she found an intellectual
3:36refuge. Although she was denied formal
3:40university entry, like most women of
3:42her time, she had unlimited access to
3:44her father's library. Her dad let her
3:47read freely whatever she wanted. So,
3:49she saw an educational asymmetry,
3:51because she, the one who had the desire
3:54to learn, had to learn inside her house
3:56. And her brothers, who were average
3:59boys, had the chance to go to
4:00university and kind of complained about
4:02having to read, while she, who had the
4:04desire, had to do it in hiding, hidden
4:06from the outside world, because her dad
4:08did let her read. I need to make the
4:11first clarification here about
4:12Virginia's story. Virginia was the
4:15daughter of a wealthy aristocratic
4:17family. Her reality is not that of all
4:19English women. We shouldn't think that
4:22all English women wanted to go to
4:23university, for example, because in her
4:25case, as an upper-class woman, she
4:27could have that desire. But for
4:29working-class women, it didn't even
4:31cross their minds to go to university
4:32because their main concern was, what
4:34are we eating today? At the same time,
4:36Virginia, for example, could not go out
4:38into the street without a chaperone,
4:40because since she was an aristocrat,
4:41what would everyone else say? At a time
4:44when honor was crucial to shaping an
4:47image within a social group. On the
4:50other hand, poor women could walk alone
4:52because the issue of honor didn't weigh
4:54as heavily, since they didn't build
4:56their legitimacy through honor, but
4:57through the need to eat. When she
5:01speaks of her brothers and their
5:03upbringing, she was very struck by the
5:05feeling that, at school, they were
5:07taught to look down on women. It’s as
5:10if there is an aspect of male
5:12university education that doesn't just
5:14train them in their chosen fields, but
5:16also shapes them as average men in a
5:18patriarchal society where they had to
5:21understand that women were inferior.
5:23But well, Virginia's life was not easy
5:25in more than one way. She later
5:27recounts in one of her books that she
5:29suffered sexual abuse during her
5:31childhood at the hands of two
5:33stepbrothers. She lost her mother at a
5:36very young age in 1895 and her father
5:38just nine years later. Throughout that
5:41time, she began to have anxiety and
5:43depression crises, and she says that
5:45literature—reading and writing—was
5:48somewhat of a refuge for her depression
5:50. But anyway, we will see later in the
5:53video that all these issues led her to
5:54take her own life in 1941. But we'll
5:58get to that. What interests me, before
6:01we start talking about her work, is to
6:03make it clear that it's not that she
6:05didn't have access to education; I mean
6:07, she didn't have access to formal
6:09education, but she did have access to a
6:11giant library open to her, something
6:13very few women of that era could do.
6:16And it is thanks to that that she was
6:18able to write one of the greatest works
6:20of feminist literature of the last
6:21century. As I say, Virginia couldn't go
6:27to university, but she did become an
6:28important novelist and short story
6:30writer. I have a collection of her
6:33stories here, for example, which is
6:34called The Mark on the Wall. They are
6:36beautiful. She wrote literature with a
6:39very fresh and modern prose for her
6:41time, and it is no coincidence that she
6:44was able to unfold her literary desire
6:46during the 1920s. It is important to
6:50place her in a context where the first
6:52feminist wave was already exploding in
6:54England, that movement of suffragette
6:56women fighting for the right to vote;
6:58these types of political demands
7:00allowed many to open their eyes to many
7:02other issues. And that is where
7:05Virginia was able to start producing
7:07her literary material much more freely,
7:10because there was a favorable context
7:12for women to begin to speak out. I mean
7:15, she started to speak out, not that
7:17she had total freedom, but at least she
7:19began to join some literary circles as
7:21a woman, because suffrage opened other
7:24doors. That is how in 1929 she
7:26published A Room of One's Own,
7:29depending on the translation you have,
7:31which is her most remembered work. This
7:36text was born from two lectures she
7:38gave in 1928 at women's colleges, where
7:40she spoke to young women who could
7:43access university, unlike her, but
7:45still in a position of inequality
7:47compared to men. As a result of these
7:51two lectures where she gives her point
7:52of view, this book appears which, as I
7:54tell you, is key to feminism. The book
7:56is a kind of metaphor for what women's
7:58economic independence should be like.
8:01She says that literature, or rather,
8:03being able to write, requires time,
8:05physical space, and money. I mean, to
8:08write you need a desk and a space to
8:10focus in peace, the time to sit and
8:12write because you don't have to do
8:14other things, and money to support
8:16yourself while you let your imagination
8:18and inspiration soar to write literary
8:21works. She states that, historically,
8:24women were denied all of this. We were
8:27denied a room of our own, our own space
8:29, because our place was supposed to be
8:31the kitchen or the room with the
8:33children, and time, because the time we
8:35had was meant for child-rearing, and
8:37money, because we weren't supposed to
8:39work. The issue of class is clearly
8:41highlighted throughout all of this. I
8:43will go into this later, but what she
8:45imagines as this ideal situation is
8:47that of a wealthy woman, because a poor
8:50woman wouldn't want time to sit and
8:52write; she would want time to feed her
8:54kids. But anyway, she always talks
8:56about privilege. I don't want it to
8:59sound like I'm nitpicking or belittling
9:01her work because not at all; it's truly
9:03a masterpiece and what she did for
9:05feminism is very important, but it is
9:07important to place it in context. As I
9:10was saying, she manages to write A Room
9:12of One's Own because she receives an
9:14inheritance from an aunt who dies and
9:16leaves her 500 pounds a year. A lot of
9:19money. I mean, translation: she is left
9:21a lot of money as an inheritance that
9:23she, being a woman, would not have had
9:25the chance to manage, even if she were
9:27a wealthy woman. And she says that it
9:30is thanks to that inheritance that she
9:31can start writing. She constructs a
9:33sort of general theory of the female
9:36intellectual experience based on her
9:38own personal experience. That is why I
9:41insist we shouldn't criticize her on
9:43the class issue, because she says, "
9:44Well, I was able to become a writer, as
9:46we will see, first and foremost by
9:48receiving an inheritance." So, the only
9:50problem she has in this regard is that
9:52she generalizes this experience as if
9:54it should be the ideal experience for
9:55every woman, when in reality it is the
9:57ideal experience of an upper-class
9:59woman. Thanks to this inheritance, she
10:02is able to sit down and write, and that
10:03is why she says that for her, economic
10:05independence is more important than the
10:07right to vote. Controversial to say the
10:10least, but she actually has a point; in
10:12her experience, she says, "The truth is
10:13that receiving this inheritance from my
10:15aunt was more important to me than
10:17being able to vote." The truth is that
10:19it is debatable at best, but as I
10:20insist, she speaks from her own
10:22experience and she is dead. We cannot
10:24debate her, and besides, she lived 100
10:26years ago. Ultimately, the essay
10:30reflects the frustration she feels
10:31living in an extremely sexist world,
10:33where she has to face the prohibitions
10:35of the era simply for being a woman. At
10:39one point in the book, she imagines a
10:41hypothetical sister of Shakespeare,
10:42saying, "Let's imagine that Shakespeare
10:44had a sister who was just as talented,
10:46or even more talented than Shakespeare.
10:48" Well, that sister would never reach
10:50where Shakespeare reached because she
10:52is a woman, and because she is a woman,
10:53she doesn't have a room of her own, she
10:55doesn't have economic independence, and
10:56she doesn't have time to produce. She
10:59is like a pioneer of what we could call
11:01the gender gap today, which is that men
11:03and women do not start from the same
11:05place. In the last century, we didn't
11:07start from the same place because we
11:09didn't have economic independence, we
11:10didn't have a room of our own, we
11:11didn't have the time. But today we can
11:14apply that same logic to situations
11:16where women who decide to be mothers
11:17have less time to train, women who
11:19decide to raise children have less time
11:21to study or advance in their jobs, and
11:23they spend more time on domestic chores
11:26. I mean, she provides an early outline
11:29of what we call the gender gap. She
11:31goes on to say that a lack of money is
11:34likely the main problem behind the lack
11:36of creativity in women. Because if you
11:38are constantly doing things that don't
11:40allow you to think, reflect, or imagine
11:42, you won't even have the desire to sit
11:44down and write. She has a point there.
11:47If you are thinking all day about the
11:49house, the kids, and I don't know what
11:50else, obviously you aren't going to
11:51have time to be creative, to start
11:53thinking, to imagine. So, in that sense
11:56, she has a point that the economic
11:58issue was very important for her
11:59because it’s what allowed her the
12:01time, the desire, and the imagination
12:03to sit down and write. But well,
12:05besides time, you have to have physical
12:07space. She talks about how women need a
12:10room with a lock to feel. She
12:14emphasizes the issue of the lock
12:15because for it to be, as it were, a
12:17woman's room, it isn't the living room
12:19or the desk you share with your husband
12:20; it is a room of one's own. It
12:23symbolizes in some way the possibility
12:25of sitting down to think without
12:27interruptions from your husband or your
12:29children. Because historically, women
12:32have lived in common rooms, whether it
12:34be the kids 'room, the kitchen, or the
12:36living room; we don't have, especially
12:39up to the time she lived, a space of
12:41our own destined solely for thinking, a
12:43desk, we could say. How many of you
12:46have a father who has a desk that is
12:48daddy's desk, and daddy's desk is not
12:49to be touched because that is where
12:51daddy works? I, for example, had a
12:53father with a desk. Well, Virginia is
12:55going to say, "We women do not have
12:56that space." It is assumed that our
12:58life is public within the house because
13:00we are subject to domestic mandates. So
13:02she is going to say, if a woman wants
13:04to sit down to write, she already needs
13:06the money and the space. In this book,
13:08she is going to say something else very
13:10interesting that I, well, it is
13:11something I really think about a lot,
13:13which is that we also need a genealogy
13:15of women. She is going to say, "History
13:18is written from an androcentric
13:19perspective, from a masculine
13:21perspective, and that is why female
13:23writers need to build and create their
13:25own history." They have to validate
13:28their voice because it is not in
13:29history or in traditional masculine
13:31narratives. So, how can you expect a
13:33woman to sit down to validate her voice
13:35and tell her story if she doesn't even
13:37have a desk to sit down and start? But
13:39well, she has several other writings.
13:41She has, for example, Three Guineas
13:43from 1938, I think it is, yes? which is
13:46a perhaps lesser-known text that is
13:47very interesting because there she is
13:49already doing something that is also
13:51very advanced for the time, which is
13:53linking the issue of patriarchy with
13:54militarism and fascism, something that
13:56was happening in Europe, in fact,
13:58fascism. She argues that the same
14:01structures that subordinate women or
14:03place them in an inferior position are
14:06the same structures that sustain
14:08fascism, militarism, and patriarchy. Of
14:12course, she wrote this in a wartime
14:14context, where she understands that the
14:16same structures of women's oppression
14:18are what sustain the structures of war,
14:20which is very advanced for the time.
14:23But she missed a point here, where
14:25Virginia's aristocratic side still
14:27shows, which is that she failed to say,
14:30"The structures sustain women, the war,
14:32and poor people or slaves, because she
14:34barely even mentions them." That is
14:37what we are going to talk about now.
14:41When she speaks of women in the plural
14:43like that, she is actually talking
14:44about white, English, wealthy women.
14:47She makes no distinction between poor
14:49women, rich women, or European,
14:51American, South American, or English
14:54women. She speaks of women, assuming we
14:56are a homogeneous group without any
14:58differences, when in reality the
15:00intersectional issue of class is
15:02extremely important when talking about
15:04women, because the reality of a rich
15:06woman is not the same as that of a poor
15:08one. But saying this makes me feel a
15:11bit guilty because Virginia wrote in
15:13the 1920s and 30s. I mean, the notion
15:15of intersectionality, this idea that
15:17you have to view women through the lens
15:20of gender and also class, is from the
15:2280s and 90s. It is unfair to ask her to
15:25be a pioneer in every sense. It would
15:28be anachronistic to make that request
15:29of her. But I do insist that it seems
15:31important to point this out, also to
15:33value the intersectional readings we
15:35have today and to value what it cost us
15:38to create those constructions that are
15:40much more empathetic, if you will, to
15:42the different realities of women.
15:44Otherwise, we are left with the
15:45versions of these white European women
15:47who were very important, but they are
15:48white and European. To begin with,
15:50let’s say, when she proposes in A
15:52Room of One's Own those 500 pounds a
15:54year she needs to live, it is
15:56incredibly classist because that is a
15:58ton of money. There were women who
16:00lived all year on a tiny fraction of
16:02those 500 pounds and it was like, "Wow,
16:04you're giving me a lot of money." I
16:06mean, the majority of British women
16:07earned next to nothing compared to the
16:09500 pounds she wanted. So there was a
16:11classism where it's like, "Well, lower
16:13your expectations a bit, friend,
16:14because not everyone is going to
16:15collect the inheritance you have." You
16:17can see a class bias and also a bit of
16:20snobbery, let's say it all, where she
16:22always ended up referring to women of
16:24affluent classes. Also in her diaries,
16:27you can see a certain disdain for the
16:29English working class, very typical of
16:31the era, of course. Where, for example,
16:34at one point in a diary, she describes
16:36that she finds it disgusting to see
16:37people buying meat, because it seemed
16:39degrading to her to have to go out and
16:40buy meat; and as if saying that she
16:42found it even more disgusting that
16:44women had to go out to buy that meat
16:45and degrade themselves. And it’s like
16:48: well, they don't have servants to go
16:49out and buy that meat, they go out to
16:50buy it themselves because they have to
16:52eat it. It is important to make these
16:55clarifications to add the issue of
16:56class to Woolf's literature, not to
16:58criticize someone who lived 100 years
17:00ago. I'll say this once because I don't
17:02want people saying later that I'm
17:03criticizing her, because in reality,
17:05she was a very important woman for
17:06feminism, but well, she is from a
17:08certain European pedestal. There is
17:10also something imperialist in her
17:11reading where she universalizes the
17:13experience and reality of the white
17:15English woman over the world. When we
17:18know that England was, let's say, a
17:20country that had colonies all over the
17:22world, especially at the beginning of
17:24the 20th century, it had colonies in
17:26Africa, Oceania, and America, and she
17:28universalizes the white experience of
17:30these women with the women of the world
17:32, without reflecting: "Wow, maybe the
17:34country I live in has colonies, and the
17:36reality of those women who have been
17:37colonized might not be the same as mine
17:39." But well, she also uses the rhetoric
17:43of slavery a lot, for example,
17:45regarding married women, saying that
17:47married women are slaves, which perhaps
17:49coming from another intellectual
17:51wouldn't be a problem; but precisely
17:53from an English woman, at a time when
17:54colonialism was being questioned, you
17:56are going to make an analogy that
17:58married women are like slaves when the
18:00country you live in has colonies in
18:02Africa, Oceania, America, and so on.
18:05That is why I insist, we must always
18:07look at the issue with class. Do you
18:09know what? I'm going to take this
18:11moment to ask you for something. I am
18:13close to having 200,000 subscribers. I
18:15can't believe it because I started less
18:17than 11 months ago, less than a year
18:18since I started the channel, and I am
18:20close to 200,000. If you want to
18:21subscribe, I would love you a lot. But
18:24well, it's not a matter of saying she
18:26was a racist either, because that would
18:27actually be simplifying her and
18:29flattening a problem that is, in
18:30reality, historical. If she was
18:32classist, it was because she lived in a
18:34classist world, in a classist society.
18:36And it is because she lived in a
18:38classist and capitalist society that
18:40the poor woman had so many mental
18:42health issues, which led her to end her
18:45life the way she did. Virginia
18:50documented mental health crises since
18:52her adolescence, with many anxiety
18:54attacks, panic attacks, and depressive
18:56episodes. They are even documented in
18:59her diaries, which led her on March 28,
19:011941, to take her own life by throwing
19:03herself into the River Ouse—I don't
19:06know how to pronounce it—in a context
19:08where England was going through a war,
19:10where Europe was going through a war,
19:12and where there was a lot of pressure
19:14on her. I mean, this shouldn't remain
19:17as a poetic, romantic fact, like the
19:19poet who couldn't take it anymore and
19:21decided to—no. She was a woman with
19:24mental health issues in a context of
19:26war, stress, and uncertainty.
19:29Retrospectively, from the present day,
19:32she was diagnosed as someone with
19:34bipolar disorder, depression, even
19:37manic depression. I mean, these are
19:40diagnoses we cannot take 100%as such
19:42because she is no longer here to be
19:44diagnosed, but from a psychiatric
19:46perspective of the present, we can
19:48assume she had mental health problems;
19:50because, obviously, in her time they
19:52said she was hysterical, a hysterical
19:54woman, and gave her therapies that
19:56ended up being extremely
19:57counterproductive to her clinical
19:59condition. She, for example, had
20:02hallucinations, and they are recorded
20:04in her autobiographies and diaries. At
20:06one point, I don't know, for example,
20:08she said that the birds sang to her in
20:10Greek. She had suicide attempts, she
20:13suffered from deep depression, and the
20:15therapy of the time basically consisted
20:18of what was called "rest cure": for a
20:20depressed person, a depressed woman, to
20:23be locked in a dark room, without
20:25contact with the world, forced to eat,
20:28and not allowed to read or write so she
20:30wouldn't get tired. I mean, basically
20:33inducing depression, but well, the
20:35psychiatry of the time—at least they
20:37didn't give her electroshock therapy,
20:38because that was the only thing missing
20:40. She was married to Leonard Woolf; in
20:43fact, her last name is her husband's,
20:45and he was sort of her nurse. He was
20:47very, very present throughout all the
20:49depressive crises she had and supported
20:51her. But, well, it seems her problem
20:53went much deeper and the therapy of the
20:56time could not handle her mental health
20:58. There was also something at the time
21:01that linked women to melancholy, where
21:03if a woman was sad she could be either
21:05hysterical or melancholic, where it
21:07wasn't treated as a psychiatric
21:09clinical condition, but as melancholy.
21:12So the response was either to feed her
21:14or lock her in a room. In the end, she
21:16ended up having her own dark room that
21:18led her to death. The psychiatry of the
21:21time, the Victorian and Edwardian,
21:23pathologized what they called the
21:25feminine malady. So it was also a bit
21:27like, well, she's a woman and she's
21:28depressed like all women, it'll pass,
21:30it'll pass. Now, something I think is
21:33important to add, which must also
21:34contribute, let's say, to her
21:36depression and her reality, was all the
21:38conflict she went through due to her
21:40sexuality, because Virginia Woolf was
21:42openly bisexual, we could say. The
21:44category of bisexual didn't exist back
21:46then, but she lived her sexuality
21:47openly and freely. Yes, we are just
21:51hypothesizing about matters of her
21:53personal life, but they are somewhat
21:54reflected in her literature. This
21:56reminds me of the part of the video I
21:58made about whether Manuel Belgrano was
21:59gay or not. It's true that Belgrano
22:01lived 100 years earlier, but it is
22:03difficult to force the sexuality of
22:05people from 100 years ago into the
22:07sexuality of today. One could say, "
22:09Well, she was bisexual, she was with
22:10men and women," but at the time, the
22:12category of bisexual did not exist. So
22:14it is difficult to force it to fit.
22:16What is true is that she openly
22:18maintained relationships with men and
22:20women. She was married for many years
22:23to Leonard Woolf and in parallel she
22:25maintained sex-affective, emotional
22:27bonds with women. And we can know this
22:30mainly because of the letters she left
22:31behind. In fact, there is an exchange
22:34of letters she had with Vita
22:36Sackville-West, who was her main lover,
22:38and I have an opinion on this that I'd
22:40like to read in the comments. Something
22:43about reading the correspondence of
22:45people who are dead makes me
22:47uncomfortable. This book is—well, I
22:49haven't read it—but it is an exchange
22:51of letters between two women who were
22:53lovers. But you can find the letters of
22:55Borges, the letters of Cortázar, the
22:56letters of Simone de Beauvoir, and
22:58something about it bothers me; I feel
23:00like I'm reading something I shouldn't
23:02be reading. And I say this as a
23:04historian who works with documents I
23:06shouldn't be reading, or that weren't
23:08written for me, but letters have a
23:09degree of intimacy that makes me feel a
23:11bit uneasy, like I'm spying on a couple
23:13talking to each other. So, I spend my
23:16time reading Cortázar’s letters, and
23:18I sort of felt like, "Ah, this is so
23:20intimate; Cortázar didn't write this
23:22thinking someone else would read it,
23:24someone other than the recipient." So
23:27anyway, I have mixed feelings about it.
23:29You can tell me what you think in the
23:31comments, because after all, these are
23:32historical documents that help us
23:34consider the three-dimensionality and
23:36complexity of a person, but to me, it
23:38feels a bit like I'm snooping through
23:39their private chats. But anyway,
23:42lesbian relationships were very
23:43important to Virginia. As I said, she
23:46had what we might call an open marriage
23:48today. She had several lovers. The most
23:50important one was precisely Vita. They
23:53met in 1922 and had an affair that
23:55lasted for years. In fact, Virginia
23:58wrote a novel called Orlando, as a sort
24:00of love letter to Vita. I mean, she
24:03really was a very important woman to
24:05her, but, well, she lived in an era
24:06where you couldn't be openly lesbian.
24:09At the very least, you had to have a
24:10husband and, if you wanted, you could
24:12be with your friend, but you couldn't
24:14be openly lesbian, and surely that
24:15weighed on her mental health in some
24:17way. For her, lesbianism wasn't just a
24:20sexual choice—let's say, a matter of
24:22compatibility or sexual desire or
24:24orientation. It was also a political
24:27and literary stance. In fact, she and
24:31her colleagues practically invented the
24:33term "Sapphist" or "Sapphism" to talk
24:34about lesbian or homosexual literature.
24:37Why? Well, for them, it was very
24:39important and a way of taking a stand
24:40before the world. That’s also why her
24:42legacy is so important; even if we say
24:44she was classist or whatever, I mean,
24:47she was a pioneering woman in thinking
24:49about feminism, the reality of women,
24:51and also in thinking about
24:52homosexuality. In her texts, she left
24:55lesbian themes as suggestions because,
24:57well, they were also in the 1930s. So,
25:00sometimes when she wrote and used
25:02ellipses, it was a way of referring to
25:04lesbian love. For example, she might
25:07say "so-and-so is shared by..."
25:09followed by an ellipsis, leaving it to
25:11be filled in—shared with a friend or
25:13shared in a romance—because, well, we
25:15have to keep placing her in her time,
25:17right? She would say that the
25:19relationships she had with women were
25:21the way she could nourish herself
25:23spiritually and intellectually to write
25:25her literature, which she didn't find
25:26in her sexual relationships with men.
25:29That inspiration or that capacity to
25:31imagine or go beyond. But with women,
25:34she did. But, as I was saying, and
25:36perhaps this is hypothetical, the fact
25:38that she had to live repressed may have
25:40influenced her mental health a bit.
25:42Because, while she wasn't living
25:44completely repressed, she was still
25:45living in a society where the
25:47possibility of a relationship between
25:48two women was inconceivable, unless she
25:50was married to a man. So well, I
25:53thought it would be interesting to
25:55bring you this video, which isn't very
25:57long, but I'm into revisiting stories
26:00or figures we’ve more or less
26:02incorporated into our daily lives, like
26:04Virginia Woolf in feminism, but with a
26:06decolonial gaze, with a Latin American
26:09perspective. Because last week I
26:13released the video on the feminist
26:14movement with a Latin American
26:16perspective and I realized that,
26:18perhaps, we lack criticism towards the
26:20readings or assumptions of that white,
26:22European feminism, as is the case with
26:24Virginia, who is a genius we love, but
26:26she was European. It is important to
26:30make those distinctions. I plan to
26:32upload a series of videos later on
26:34about Latin American feminist figures
26:36who perhaps aren't names we know so
26:39well, but who are important for us to
26:41think about as women in a society that
26:43has been colonized, is peripheral, and
26:45so on. So, you can leave in the
26:48comments what you think about "A Room
26:50of One's Own." If you really believe
26:52it's that important for a woman to have
26:54a room of her own, you can leave in the
26:55comments what you think about reading
26:57other people's letters, which I insist,
26:58something about it still bothers me a
27:00bit, but it has to be done because I am
27:01a historian. I’m adding a disclaimer,
27:03which I never do because I feel like
27:05you all already know me, but it never
27:06hurts. Besides, I have a degree and am
27:08a professor of history, and I make
27:10these videos as a popularization piece
27:12to spark questions and curiosity, not
27:13to dive too deeply into a subject. I
27:16just want you to leave here curious,
27:17with a desire to keep learning. Having
27:20said all that, see you next week.
27:22Remember I have my historical stand-up
27:23show, "Depends on the Past, It’s Not
27:25the Problem." I also have my Halloween
27:27special, which I'll be taking to a few
27:28cities. And this is a comment for a
27:30certain country, which is the second
27:32country that watches my videos the most
27:34, which is the beautiful country of
27:36Mexico. What cities are you from?
27:38Because I might be going on vacation to
27:40Mexico, and if there are people who
27:41want to see my witches special in
27:43Mexico in January, I could visit your
27:44city, but you have to tell me which
27:46city you're watching from because
27:47YouTube statistics only show me Mexico.
27:49I don't know if there are people in the
27:51cities I plan to visit who are willing
27:52to listen to me. So if you are from
27:54Mexico, let me know which cities you're
27:56from. Let's see if I can add some of
27:57the witches special for Mexico. And now
28:00, who actually stayed to watch this
28:01part of the video? No, three people. I
28:04send a kiss to those three people.

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