Being Mr. Kenny

I was doing some last-minute Christmas shopping the other day (i.e., all of it) when I saw some of those novelty mugs that are produced by Penguin, the book publishers. These mugs have the same design as the covers of certain classic books: plain, with the title and author. You can find them by Googling for Penguin classic book mugs. The range has since been increased since these mugs appeared to include other household items.

What caught my eye was the fact that they’ve brought out a tea towel with Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own printed thereon. You’d think that a seminal feminist text would be allocated to something more fitting, like … well I can’t think of any pro-feminist objects, but you get the point. Tea-towels aren’t exactly the symbol of the emancipation of women.

Is someone making a subtle ironic joke? Or is this some sort of attempt at getting more women to read feminist literature? Kinda like if you can smuggle it into a kitchen, maybe more oppressed women will read it.