The Economics of Womanhood: Gender, Labour, and Social Power in Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession and Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between gender, labour, and economic power in George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession and Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Although Shaw writes through drama and Woolf through the essay form, both writers expose the economic foundations of women’s oppression. Shaw presents prostitution not as an individual moral failure but as the result of social hypocrisy, class inequality, and limited employment opportunities for women. Woolf, on the other hand, argues that women’s intellectual freedom depends upon material independence, education, privacy, and financial security. This paper compares Shaw’s theatrical critique of Victorian morality with Woolf’s feminist analysis of literary history and economic exclusion. It argues that both texts challenge patriarchal culture by revealing how womanhood is shaped by economic conditions. While Shaw exposes the social structures that force women into morally condemned labour, Woolf emphasizes the material requirements necessary for women to create, think, and write freely. Together, these works show that gender inequality cannot be separated from labour, money, class, and social power.