Women, privacy and modernity in early twentieth-century British writing

the long version

Privacy is not often thought of as a marker of modernity but a look at British women₂s writing of the early twentieth century suggests that it should be so. For women, access to privacy, especially spatial privacy, has often been limited but with an increased awareness of the politics of space and the importance of a room of one₂s own, privacy, long considered a male preserve, was slowly becoming seen as a privilege that a modern and middle-class woman was entitled to. This appropriation of anti-social privacy was a rebellion against conventional, other-centred femininity and emancipatory in its modernity. But even as women were growing aware of their new desire for privacy, privacy was nonetheless awkward for women to practice. Looking at representations of women₂s privacy (or lack of it) and exploring the various spaces that women deploy for privacy allows us to see the ambivalences of modernity for women.