Happy National Women's Confidence Day

What a great idea. I heard about this on the radio last night exactly while I was reading Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. Woolf was talking about how women (in the 20s) were overcoming the expectations set upon them over the centuries, how the day to day life of a middle class woman was virtually a mystery up until the 1800s, and how even through the 1800s a gifted woman had to hide her work behind a male pseudonym. I started thinking about the obstacles women face in the 21st century, and hearing about National Women's Confidence Day (NWCD) helped to clear things up.

Women are still trying to prove themselves, yet maintain their identity as women. Any year now I'm going to face the decision to continue working or to stay at home raising kids. I have to seriously consider how my priorities will have to adjust when I have a family. And all along the way, I have to have the confidence to make it all work: to maintain whatever work schedule I'm on, to sell my passion as a viable living, and to be the kind of parent I hope to be. Getting much more into the detail than this begins to make my head spin, and my heartrate quickens. Luckily, because I know millions of women carry this off every day, I feel so much better.

And that's what this day of recognition is all about. Here are the goals of NWCD:

• To remind women everywhere to empower themselves with self confidence every day.
• To create an opportunity for women to help other women live more confident and fulfilling lives via educational programs, fundraising, self-empowerment and volunteer work.
• To tribute women who contribute, via education, fundraising, self-empowerment and volunteer work, to other women helping them to gain more confidence and self esteem.

I'm curious to know how Woolf would update her essay 80 years after she wrote it, and especially to see what criticisms of society she would have now. Surely the volume would triple in length with all that's happened to women since Woolf died. But my question is, would Woolf's tune change from having a room of one's own to having self confidence? Well, as far as fiction is concerned, having a room full of self confidence can't hurt.