Throughout a wide variety of cultures throughout history, women have had to endure lower status than men. Many women and feminists have risen to fight or oppose this inequality, and Virginia Woolf was no exception. To convey her disapproval of underlying attitudes towards women's place in society, Woolf described a situation in which women were deprived of the pleasures of expensive foods. During her visit to the university, Woolf witnessed two very different meals. The extravagant feast was reserved for men, while women received a much less elegant meal. Through the use of detail, syntax, and imagery, Woolf contrasted the privileges of men with the basic necessities afforded to women. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Through her recollection of specific details, Virginia Woolf recounted the stark contrasts between the meals served at men's and women's colleges. While the men received “partridges, numerous and varied, with all their attendants of sauces and salads,” the women received beef, more precisely “the rumps of cattle in a muddy market.” The men also had a treat so elegant that “to call it pudding and thus connect it with rice and tapioca would be an insult.” The women, however, had to swallow the plums which "even if mitigated by the custard, are an uncharitable vegetable". The drinks that individuals at this university could consume also depended on their gender. The men's wine glasses were refilled repeatedly during the course of the meal, but the women were only allowed one jug of water which was "passed around freely." During this time period, her sentence structure also suggested that Woolf was outraged by discrimination against women. In contrast to the eloquent and complex sentences found in the passage describing the men's meals, the passage describing the women's dining conditions used short, simple sentences. Woolf opened the scene by stating that "It is part of the novelist's convention not to mention soup, salmon and ducklings, as if soup, salmon and ducklings were of no importance, as if no one had ever smoked a cigar or drank a glass." of wine” among men. On the other hand, Woolf introduced the passage about the women's meal with a blunt statement: "Here is my soup." Furthermore, the men were described with elegant phrases that confirmed that they were all “going to heaven… in other words, how beautiful life seemed, how sweet its rewards, how futile this grievance or that grudge, how admirable the friendship and the company of loved ones." as gentle as lighting a good cigarette, sunk between the cushions on the seat near the window" after the conclusion of the meal. In contrast, for the women, Woolf simply stated that "the meal was over" and all the women dispersed from the dining room. The long sentences gave off a sense of contentment, while the blunt sentences used to describe the women's meal gave off a sense of frustration and anger. In addition to the use of syntax, Woolf also used imagery to provoke awareness that even though women and men received similar food at university, the quality of the men's food surpassed the quality of the women's food. Although both received shoots, the men's were described as "rosebuds with leaves, but more succulent", while the women's were "curled and yellowed at the edges". The physical presentation of meals also varied greatly for men and women. . The.