One of the texts we read for this week was a manifesto. There are many examples of manifestos, whether from an organization, a business, or a movement, artistic, political, or otherwise. In general, they are short pieces of writing that make a powerful argument about their topic. Mina Loy, in her “Feminist Manifesto,” argues a few key points about women in society, including one that women’s value is linked to her virginity, and that her place in society cannot change until that society changes how it values (or commodifies) that virginity, including a a bold solution to this problem.
In Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, rather than making her points in a short manifesto, she writes throughout the six chapters different ways to conceive of women and fiction, and in the course of doing so, also makes bold arguments expressing feminist views.
If you were going to write a manifesto about women in our society as Loy does, or take on Woolf’s topic of women and fiction, what issue might you write about? Write a post in which you brainstorm about that focus and how you could write about it in a bold way. You might think about some of the issues the characters we’ve encountered so far have had to face, as a way to begin to think about issues your manifesto would address. Be sure to aim for at least 300 words. Use the category Manifesto and also Homework Responses.
