In short, woman as such does not exist. She is not real; she has no shadow, and most of all, no Truth. Her knock on the door of the library [at Cambridge] makes no sound. There are (at least) two ways of conceiving this hypothesis. First, that this condition of non-existence has been foisted upon woman (I am thinking of a "type," not individuals) by a series of power structures initiated, preserved, and strengthened by a dominant patriarchy which does "exist," cast a shadow, and possesses its Truth as a basis for its dominance. In this conception space forms part of a political economy of difference. Spaces for men / spaces for women. Space of knowledge / space of ignorance. Space of power / space of impotence. Space of rights / space of limitations. And each of these sets of difference can be read across Woolf's writing (especially in A Room). Ultimately, when space is read in this way it takes on the general shape of Dominant space juxtaposed against Alternative space (perhaps a variety of alternatives, in the end), in which power relationships play out the difference between existence and non-existence.
Thinking within this political economy, Tracy Seeley suggests that Woolf is working out precisely this alternative space opposed to this dominant space through "tropes-as-movment" or "tropes-as-trajectory" which produces "a positive, alternative trajectory to both literality and logic" (31-32). Resorting to tropes, which do not precede in a linear, smooth, 1-2-3, fashion but in zig-zag movements, creates spaces in which one's behavior and one's thought can invent itself. Identity in these alternative spaces, no longer constrained, can manifest itself beyond and in resistance toward the dominant spaces which exist along side it. In contrast to subjectivity produced in dominated space which grounds certain kinds of subjectivity on a carefully guarded lawn of logic which guarantees existence (one's recognition in the world and one's ability to intervene on the world), alternative space which is marked out according to a rhetoric of tropes, side-tracked thinking, digression and story telling, allows for the constitution of a subject which can at the very least exist and intervene within this space [this room of one's own] even if the subject cannot do so outside within the dominated space. Both spaces ground an existence but on different truths.
Woman, so the story goes, has been kept within the dominated space and therefore does not exist (according to the patriarchal logic). She is kept a mystery, even to herself. Thus, the construction of alternative spaces takes on the role of resistance within the political economy of spaces which Woolf is very much concerned with. Alternative spaces allow for alternative existence which do not require legitimation from the patriarchy. Seeley sees this project of constructing alternative space (and thus alternative subjectivity, alternative existence) occurring as a personal activity which has as its goal the possibility of existing apart from domination - "I will exist, somewhere, somehow." Existence (power to cast a shadow), which is the treasure of patriarchy guarded in its academies denied to woman, will also become the treasure of alternative subjectivities whether by seizure (women attending university), counterfeit (women only universities), or creativity (A Room). Whichever avenue alterity pursues, an existence which has been denied it is the goal. Woman does not exist, but she must exist at all costs. Woman does not exist, but she must exist through alternative illogics and tropes which justify existence on an alternative basis. This hypothesis explains the positive side of Woolf's political views; it explains one way to think of "a room of one's own," but I do not think it is enough.
However, the second way of conceiving the hypothesis "Woman does not exist" is one which reads the situation outside of the political economy of [spatial] power-relations (which is, I think, the favored interpretation). The second conception says, "Woman does not exist, and this is why she prevails." The irony of this hypothesis, apart from being offensive to feminist projects, is in its reversal of the story. The injustices of the patriarchy and its domination of woman is affirmed, yet at the same time domination itself is overturned. (Here, I see an gap in Seeley's tropic reading. The trope if irony [the master trope according to Hayden White] is missing for the political economy. That is why I bring up this second hypothesis). Domination is no triumph, its power is not enviable, rather a pitiable weakness. What has been guarded as a treasure by the academy (manliness, power, truth, knowledge, logic, all in one stroke) is sham as much as it maintains a power to dominate the construction of spaces. The real reversal arises not because femininity reverses the patriarchy or earns its keep by virtue of its manliness of argumentation, but because femininity itself - the Woman - needs no recourse to power.
Baudrillard writes in Seduction, "The feminine knows neither equivalence nor value: it is, therefore not soluble in power. It is not even subversive, it is reversible. Power, on the other hand, is soluble in the reversibility of the feminine" (17). Woman does not exist, nor does she need to, because by not existing (without a subjectivity granted her from somewhere else) she can exert a maximum pressure upon the masculine in the form of a challenge to exist, to overexpose himself, to become certain deploy himself in every venue until he exhausts his truth entirely. This is what Baudrillard calls Seduction, the game which Woman has always won. Because Woman has been denied rights does not mean, in this view, that she has been dominated. Because Woman has not been given a legitimate existence by institutional patriarchy does not mean she lacks anything. First of all, one would have to consider an eduction, voting rights, and other privileges as supremely valuable to be able to see Woman as deprived (which is to buy into the same infrastructure supporting "phallocracy" - i.e. castration narrative). This Truth of patriarchy, which reaffirms itself by reiterating its truth in discourse (and in war), then, appears as a hedging against an uncertain truth presented by what does not exist, namely Woman. "The feminine is not just seduction; it also suggests a challenge to the male to be the sex, to monopolize sex and sexual pleasure, a challenge to go to the limits of its hegemony and exercise it unto death" (Baudrillard, 21). Daring patriarchy to lay down all its cards, Woman, who requires no such discursive effort to not-exist, is left with the last laugh. Masculinity, in its obsessive declaration of itself becomes laughable, inane, stupid despite its "learning." Masculinity, which tells you how to behave and how to act is most of all enslaved to itself and its own existence. Hence "phallocarcy's" attempts to normalize and control both madness and the feminine (both of which present non-discursive uncertainty) since both madness and the feminine secretly prevail over things that "exist" in as much as existence requires certain kinds of effort (certain logics, certain groundings). Madness and the feminine require no effort to not-exist; Patriarchy and the masculine require tremendous expenditures of money, time, and thought which yield nothing of value but its own justification. What then is enviable about Oxbridge or any other fortress of men? What could Woman ever stand to gain from the privileged positions of men?
I bring up this second hypothesis (which is quite an outrage to some, to be sure), because I think it better explains what Seeley calls the "digression" of Woolf's rhetoric in A Room. The kind of illogical appraoch of Woolf's narratives and digressions do not necessarily follow logical patterns. Her potential for getting "side-tracked" is the game of Seduction (being led astray). When one is seduced one enters into the game of being led astray. Detouring is the response to a provocation issued as Seduction. This notion, I think, more closely accords with the wandering, the ellipses, and digressions in A Room which Seeley discusses. What this means then, as Seeley points out, is that Woolf could never fully establish an identity, a subjectivity, or a final truth, because at the heart of itself a truth is always wandering, being led astray, seduced (43).
In this sense, one cannot have both a nomadic soul (subjectivity) and an alternative space. One cannot resist or subvert the dominant space from an alternative space as long as one cannot fix subjectivity in an existence. Resistance and subversion require existence, and they are in fact still within the logic of patriarchy (revolution is a manly, un-ironic, ideal). As much as she is wandering, Woman does not exist, nor does she need to. Within alternative spaces, Woman does exist, and she must in order to maintain the alterity of the space. I think it is possible that Woolf is stretched across these two hypothesis and their two readings of space. To have a room of one's own, or to have £500 of one's own could play into either. It could be the space within which one practices a kind of illogic according to certain tropes as a means for attaining what has been denied by the dominant discourse, or it could be the space in which one practices digression, flights of thought, the nomadic wanderings of the soul in defiance and seduction. Non-existence cannot perceive existence as a threat, quite the opposite. It is perhaps an advantage to keep a room of one's own which does not register, which remains hidden and secret, since in the non-existence of such a space one might actually absorb the power which dominates existence (which constitutes it).
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