Locked In vs. Locked Out

Growing up my parents always had small social gatherings that they would invite their friends to who in turn bring their children my age. I would always love to play with these kids but there was always that one little girl or boy that I never wanted to play with. So when my parents' friends would begin to show up with their children I would quickly grab the little girl that was my "best friend" and we would run and play. We would go into my room and lock the door. We would play house, school, beauty store, anything we could think of we played. Even though we would be having the time of our lives I can remember times in which the friend I didn't want to play with would bang on the door. Sometimes she would cry but I never wanted to let her in. After awhile an adult would wander down the hall and pick her up. She would then be in the care of the adults for the night. She might get to have a special desert or get to watch her favorite tv show. But I always got to play with the friend that I wanted to play with. Looking back at it now I wonder if it was really worth it. Had I let her in and played with her would I have gotten a good dessert too?
In a roundabout way I can relate this to Virginia Woolf's idea of "how unpleasant it is to be locked out...[but] how it is worse perhaps to be locked in". I think Woolf was trying to depict the idea that either way women have difficulty becoming successful writers, or holding any position of authority. How women were reliant on men to have a home yet they wanted to have a job of their own. The other side of the table is that women that have a job of their own often had difficutly providing for their families. I relate this to my story in that even though I was able to play with my friend I still missed out on that dessert that every kid wants yet the little girl on the other side of the door didn't get to play with me yet she got to have that dessert and have freedoms that I didn't have.
Sometimes I wish that these figuritive doors could be dutch doors. Women can open half of it. We can still see out into the world but we are not ostrasized and critized for having a job of our own and we are able to maintain the comforts of life.