Three Guineas is a 1938 essay by Virginia Woolf, written in response to a letter from a male friend asking her opinion on how to prevent war. Woolf argues that the root cause of war is patriarchy, and that the only way to prevent it is to challenge and dismantle the patriarchal structures that perpetuate it. She suggests that women must work together to achieve this goal, and proposes three specific actions: refusing to support institutions that perpetuate patriarchy, refusing to participate in war, and supporting education for women. Woolf also argues that women must be willing to take risks and make sacrifices in order to achieve their goals. In the end, she concludes that the only way to prevent war is to create a world in which men and women are equal.
By Virginia Woolf · First published 1938 · Genre: Feminist Literature, Non-Fiction, Philosophical Literature · 3 chapters