This full spectrum of relationships implies that fully-functioning and developed societies can form around these relationships, and that they are not dependent upon male relationships whatsoever. The strength of the females in the Color Purple culminates in such an organization of their community; and, we are led to believe, that this particular community possesses the capacity to satisfy the women's physical and spiritual needs far better than any male-dominated society could offer.

Woolf does not make this same contention in "The New Dress." Although it could be argued, from her other works, that she might possibly agree with such an ultimate organization of female society, "The New Dress" seems to focus more upon the inadequacies of social communication in general, irrespective of gender. This is not to say that gender is not a concern in the story, merely that the overall organization of the society that Mabel finds herself in...
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