I love Virginia Woolf's writing so much--it is so clever and so rigorous and so sly and so humane. There's several particularly insightful passages that feel like they're altering some things about how my brain works.
ETA: Also, crucial to my experience of Three Guineas (and indeed much of Woolf's nonfiction) is watching someone create arguments from the ground up that I grew up with--say, "the personal is political," which is one of the central arguments of this book. When I first came to that idea in about 2010, it was already lush (perhaps even overgrown) with a tremendous amount of writing, theorizing, academic legitimation. Woolf had none of that--she is making that argument from first principles (although her first principles, of course, are based in a very Victorian upbringing and education, and in her rebellion against that upbringing and education). There are things which, reading now, might strike one as overly drawn-out, or perhaps defensive, but of course she felt it necessary to be cautious in places and circumspect in places and funny about things she felt seriously about in places. And getting to watch her mind work through all of that is in itself such an education, both of how arguments are born and why feminist (sorry Mrs. Woolf for using the word) theory over the generations has taken the shapes it has. ( )

Three Guineas is the other half of the novel-essay conceived by Virginia Woolf that ultimately split apart into a novel (The Years) and an essay-length book (Three Guineas). Here Woolf charmingly responds to the honorary treasurer of an anti-war organization who wants her to donate to and join their cause. Before sending him her guinea, though Woolf explores how she, as an "educated man's daughter" could most effectively help the pacifist cause while also mulling over requests from two other honorary treasurers raising money for women's education and for support in women entering the professions. Backed up by numerous quotations from newspapers, biographies, and diaries/letters, Woolf weaves a compelling, logical, and witty response to her requestors. Written on the brink of World War II, and mere decades after British women had won the right to vote, to get an education, and to enter the professions, the arguments feel like more than just an intellectual exercise -- there is really something at stake here. Often seen as a companion piece to A Room of One's Own, Woolf's take-down of the patriarchy and her understanding of its impact on the lives of women continue to feel fresh and vibrant. She also gives David Foster Wallace a run for his money in the funny footnote department. ( )

After reading most of Virginia Woolf novels (except for one) I have decided to move on to her non-fiction works. Wasn't really a fan of this topic, I mean it was interesting, but if it was written by someone else I wouldn't bother to read Three Guineas.

This is long essay about giving women the right to have a good college education to maybe prevent wars from starting or giving anyone the proper education to see that war is bad. Woolf herself was a feminist and she was against wars. She didn't like seeing soldiers coming back with all these issues they never had before war (Mrs. Dalloway goes into this too). She was also self-taught. She never had the money for an education and she read books above her age limit as a girl. To her, learning was a key to life.

I wasn't a fan of how this edition was set up either. It's not Woolf's fault at all, but there was no table of contents or index which I think would help this book. I also skimmed the chapter long notes page. Not that it's not important, just nothing to my interest. ( )

I found many truths in this book about the value of treatment of women that are , unfortunately, still true today. However, I felt the book was too detailed and too repetitive to make its case well. It also was directed to Brits so I did not possess foreknowledge of many of many of the references. ( )

Hacer a un lado todas las preocupaciones y estudios terrenales y delegarlos a otra persona constituye una motivación muy atractiva para algunos; pues indudablemente hay quienes quieren retirarse y estudiar, como demuestran la teología con sus refinamientos y la erudición con sus sutilezas; para otros, es cierto, esa motivación es una motivación pobre, mezquina, el motivo de la separación entre la Iglesia y el pueblo, entre la literatura y el pueblo, entre el marido y la mujer, y que ha desempeñado un papel importante en sacar de quicio a la totalidad de la Commonwealth. Pero cualesquiera sean las motivaciones fuertes e inconscientes que subyacen a la exclusión de las mujeres del sacerdocio -y es evidente que aquí no vamos a enumerarlas, mucho menos escarbar hasta sus raíces-, la hija del hombre instruido puede confirmar, a partir de su experiencia, que “es común, e incluso frecuente, que dichas concepciones sobrevivan en el adulto a pesar de la irracionalidad que las caracteriza y traicionen su presencia debajo del nivel del pensamiento consciente a causa la fuerza de los sentimientos que despiertan”.