Woolf, in A Room of One's Own, stipulates her theory of androgyny. Woolf advises that female authors learn to be unconscious of the self, especially in reference to gender. She claims that since there are two sexes in the world there must be two sexes in the mind. The union of these two sexes is responsible for creation. "It is when this fusion takes place that the mind is fully fertilised and uses all its faculties" (Woolf, 98).

As Catherine Byron notes, McGuckian too "finds it essential to explore and express both the male and female within her consciousness" (Byron, 17).