The name of the fictitious women’s college that the imagined narrator visits in Chapter 1. In the context of this work, Fernham is a metaphorical representation for other women’s colleges in the United Kingdom that existed during Woolf’s lifetime. Women were not legally granted the right to a university level education until 1877 in the United Kingdom, and for decades after, the women’s colleges that were founded were often vastly underfunded. Fernham represents the inequalities between men’s and women’s colleges, as well as the constant devaluation of women’s education in general.

Broadly, feminism can be defined as sociopolitical movement that advocates for the belief that all genders and sexes are equal and should have access to the same opportunities. For Woolf, who was part of the first wave of the feminist movement, feminism meant that women deserved equal legal rights as men. This ideology has changed over the decades but has always been founded upon the rejection of patriarchal societal structures that disenfranchise women in favor of men’s rights. During Woolf’s life, feminism and feminist advancements were often reserved for white women of higher social classes, but feminism today has developed a more inclusive outlook that acknowledges the multiple layers of discrimination women can face when they are also people of color, disabled, LGBTQ+, or part of another marginalized group.