A Room of One's Own

Why does she include the meals at the two Colleges? What do they show about the status of women in her time?

The two meals show the great contrast in the two schools quickly and in a manner that can be easily related to. Everyone eats and it’s not difficult to see the difference in such things. Oxbridge has grand food and a fancy desert that she can’t even give a name to as “to call it pudding and so relate it to rice and tapioca would be an insult.” The whole dinner was leisurely, though the lose of something was evident when comparing the discussion to times before the war, that maybe people cannot relate to each other and artistry in general the same way as what was then new is not as flowing, but darker and with in more simple speech without flowery beautiful language. Then at the Fernham we see a different sort of dinner and discussion. There was no desert, the biscuits were dry, and the soup so thin that “one could have seen through the transparent liquid any pattern that there might have been on the plate itself. But there was no pattern.” I feel that properly describes the dinner. Then there was no talk of leisure, only leaving to allow the dining hall to be made ready for the morning meal. This makes me feel there was little discussion or relaxation, this was a meal to feed the stomach and not the mind. This seems very unfair when comparing the two meals. The inequality in the sexes is glaringly obvious here.

Good here on the contrast between the meals, and especially good on the lack of conversation at Fernham.
See my reply to Ash on this about the historical context, with regard to women and higher education.
I'd really like your reaction/response to her Judith Shakespeare story.