Room for Thought: Symbolic Space and Narrative Experience

María Isabel Peña Aguado, in her article, “Room for Thought: Symbolic Space and Narrative Experience,” argues for women to develop their own narrative and symbolic space, while recognizing their differences. At the dawn of the fifteenth century, Christine de Pizan dreamed about a “city of ladies.” Almost five hundred years later, Virginia Woolf asserted women’s right to “a room of one’s own.” Both authors believed that the time had come for women to have at their disposal a space of their own. Space, having a place of one’s own, is not just a physical or geographical question. As the women of the Milan Women’s Bookstore Collective pointed out, this space must be understood in its symbolic meaning. In their testimony, it quickly becomes obvious that the creation of such a space is essentially a question of voices, experiences, interrelations, and differences between women.