In 1928, Woolf is convinced that there has never been a woman Shakespeare because of several reasons. First, women are responsible for the children. Raising children is a time-consuming job, leaving them with no time to write, or write with the value of Shakespeare. Second, women are not presented with the same opportunities as men. Women have always been a part of a male-dominant society (some could argue that we have finally made it to that point of recent), and opportunities have always been fashioned around men. As hard as women could work to become a Shakespeare, they would never have the same opportunities as men to publish, or gain the credit that they deserve. Third, women did not have the opportunity to participate in acting. Their writing was also devalued; men said that women who wrote were doing so to be like men, to spend time with the men. There was no way that their work would maintain any credibility or value.
Woolf begs the question "is it important to write like a feminist/ like a woman?"
It seems that because women had so much to prove they first started writing like men. To be accepted they had to have the ideas of men. Then suddenly, women wanted to show the female aspect. To gain value as a writer they should not act as a man, they should speak out as a woman. This 'woman's voice' became tremendously important; it became a statement on it's own. Now to be a woman writer with value, you had to speak on women's issues, you had to be a feminist. If you were somehow now portraying yourself in this way, you were making a mockery of women all over, humiliating your own sex. I completely understand why women feel the pressure to write like a feminist. It is this obsession to bring women's issues to the forefront, to shed light on your own sex. I don't think though that women should have to reside in this stereotype. Women should write whatever they feel like writing, regardless if it is considered "mens writing" or not. That is the real problem. Why does there have to be a set difference in women's and men's writing; can't we all be sympathetic to each other's struggles. Writing is a different process for each person, and to be restricted to write within a certain genre, takes away the personal process writing is. However you feel like expressing yourself, should be accepted by everyone.
"I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in," Virginia Woolf
I am sure this quote can be interpreted many ways, but I see it as Woolf saying that the idea of being "locked in" is the real problem. Regardless if you are locked in a man's world or a woman's world, we should not have to be molds to any certain design. Even as a female student in college, I feel as if everyone thinks that all my papers must be about feminism, about the woman's struggle. Why I am a feminist, and I do like writing about women's issues (because that is what I know best), I don't want to be cast into a certain stereotype because of my sex. I love writing about other things as well, and knowing that what I write is my own feelings, that I am being true to my creativity by writing from the heart, not from societies standards. While Woolf hates the thought of being locked out from the literally world, it is almost worse to be locked into a certain mold once in that world. Once she writes about the female struggle, she is automatically locked in as a feminist, woman, writer. While yes, she is a feminist, but she is also a human, who undergoes human struggles everyday as well. She sees the literary scope as a lose-lose at this time period. She either remains on the outside, or she maintains a position on the inside, but must remain within this feminine sphere forever.
Soldier=Woman 
