Doris Lessing’s "A Woman on a Roof" allows us to understand how some men view woman: as mere objects for display and possession. Lessing shows how each of the male characters reacts and deals with rejection from a woman sunbathing on a nearby rooftop. We discover how three men’s preoccupation with sex keeps them unaware of how their advances may be unwanted and ignorant of their action’s possible consequences.

All three men share the desire to get this woman’s attention. Working on a rooftop of a block of flats in the hot, hot, sun, these men seek a diversion from the relentless heat. They whistle, yell, and wave at a near naked woman on a rooftop nearby, but the woman pays no mind to them. Their isolation on the rooftop and the woman’s relentless indignation fuels the men’s decent into a world of lewd behavior, thereby creating an atmosphere of harassment and rejection. They become "taunted" by this woman’s indifference towards them.

All three men have distinctly different attitudes towards the situation they have created. Each has experienced rejection from women. In fact, each displays a level of hardness that affects his attitude. They each react differently to the woman’s indifference and each take his efforts to different levels.

The three men momentarily find distraction from the heat as they become obsessed with the sunbather’ s exact location. They report her movements to one another. Stanley likens her presence on her roof to "a crime gotten away with." He states that "he would never let his wife do what she is doing" (Lessing 857). Acting as judge and jury, all three men seem to deny her the right to be on her roof doing as she pleases.

The woman acts as if she has managed to escape the mindless need to entertain men (Allen 200). The woman on the roof has not offered one invitation for comment or attention, yet the men feel she has. By being caught by their eyes was invitation enough, yet the woman ignores the men no matter what (Lessing 858). She remains the symbol of a new age woman who disdains harassment from men.

Stanley shows a hatred for this woman’s remote coolness (Lessing 858). An attitude not yet displayed by Tom and long since forgotten by Harry, his anger reveals how he has dealt with the indifference of women before. Protected for the moment, by this lofty location, Stanley floats above his memory of past rejections. He is barely coping with the situation and shows he is losing it as he becomes more verbally abusive towards her.

In the middle of the story Lessing takes us away for a moment as she reminds us of a folktale of long ago. She refers to the woman as Lady Godiva and Tom shares the same name as Godiva’s voyeur (859). The small amount of clothing on the woman on the roof Is not much less than Godiva’s long hair. Tom’s admiration and longing for the woman is nothing more than "peeping" and like the folktale, Tom is set to be punished eventually.

The situation is heating up as the temperature soars into the 80’s. Stanley begins stomping and screaming at this woman. Harry struggles to take control of the situation as he sees no end to Stanley’s and Tom’s obsessive behavior. He takes responsibility to knock the men off early before asking his boss. Stanley is clearly no good for work for the rest of the day and Tom has become delusional as he is now free to pursue his woman.

It is now Tom’s moment of truth. He surprises the woman by pouncing in on her space. She stares at him and asks him "what do you want?" (Lessing 861). Expecting to be welcome, he stammers over his explanation of being there. She offers no idle conversation and rejects him with the words "go away" (Lessing 861) . Tom doesn’t immediately realize what has happened because of a phenomenon called "delay of stupidity." Tom will suffer from his impulsive actions and move up to Stanley’s attitude level. Eventually, Tom will land at Harry’s level, as Stanley has, accepting (reluctantly) that not every women is an object for man’s passion.

Retreating and feeling broken, Tom gets drunk "in hatred of her." This lesson has "fixed" him as if to say: "see what you get for being so stupid?" (Lessing 862). The delay in Tom’s realization of his stupidity was inevitable. On the roof, Stanley and Harry displayed "lessons learned" in their attitudes. They knew when to quit. Tom took his unbridled actions all the way because he knew no better.

The men return to work the next day with a new distraction on their minds. The weather has changed suddenly and is no longer attractive to sun bathers. Without the presence of the woman on the roof there are no sexual thoughts to preoccupy them. For Tom and Stanley, the consequences of their actions are forgotten and only evident in their new levels of understanding.

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In Doris Lessing’s "A Woman on a Roof," three workmen react differently towards a woman sunbathing on a roof. The men are Harry, who is in his mid-40s, Stanley, who is newly married, and Tom, who is 17. They are engaged in a jovial banter when they spot a woman about fifty yards from where they are standing. She’s on her back, face down on a brown blanket. Stanley is first to comment, "She’s stark naked." Harry agrees, "Looks like it," while Tom cranes his neck so he can see more and replies, "She thinks no one can see." Stanley whistles, but the woman does not look up. She sits, smoking a cigarette (856).

This seems to be one of Lessing’s most critically neglected stories. In fact, there are only a few written criticisms about it, and most of these focus on the different reactions of the three workmen. However, the woman, who is not named in the story, is also a very intriguing and interesting character. While many readers see her as an innocent – the sunbather who only wants to be left alone – there is evidence to show that she uses her sexuality through nonverbal communication to show power and privilege.

Sociological perspectives suggest that nonverbal communication is of particular importance to women because their socialization to docility and passivity makes them likely targets for social control. Sexuality (masculinity or femininity) is not biologically determined but is part of social learning. In "Womanspeak and Manspeak," Nancy Henley, Mykol Hamilton, and Barrie Thorne have argued that while women’s general bodily demeanor must be restrained and restricted, and that their femininity is gauged by how little (personal) space they take up. In contrast, masculinity is judged by males’ expansiveness and the strength of their flamboyant gestures. Thus males tend to fight for "greater territory" and to control greater personal space (Henley 153). Because the sunbathing woman is bikini-clad, which reveals the contours of her body, her sexuality becomes highly visible. Thus, the three men fight for her attention through flamboyant gestures of whistling, yelling or stomping their feet. However, no matter what they do, she refuses to respond the way the three workmen expect her to. Her utter indifference towards them earns her the title of "bitch." When they cannot get anything out of her, she makes them very angry (Lessing 857). Stanley compares her to a middle-aged woman who comes to the roof to water her plants: "She’s not like Lady Godiva—she can give us a bit of a chat and a smile" (859). This statement from Stanley proves that, despite their wolf whistling, they still expect the woman on the roof to be pleasant.

In an article titled "On Becoming Male," James Henslin says that males behave one way when they are among themselves and another way when they are with females. He calls this behavior "artificiality." Henslin points out that, because of this artificiality, men’s exercises in manipulation are reinforced when they learn how to get what they want, whether that be an approving smile, a caress, a kiss, or more (134). However, no matter what the three workmen do, the woman on the roof remains indifferent, as if she does not even see them. Therefore, by employing nonverbal communication tactics—ignoring, reading a book, shifting body positions—she shows that, indeed, she is the one who has power over them. In fact, she is so powerful that her presence distracts the men from doing their work on time.

In addition, she expresses her privilege through nonverbal communication when she refuses to be intimidated from giving up her right to sunbathe on top of the roof. Edward Hall argues in "The Sounds of Silence" that nonverbal communication is significant in conveying feelings and attitudes. He says that nonverbal communication, though subtle, lies beyond even our own perception. Nonverbal communication "can communicate feelings of comfort and discomfort, trust and distrust, pleasure or tension, suspicions and a host of other feelings and concerns" (93).

The woman’s nonverbal communication as she continues to sunbathe on top of the roof elicits maddening yells from the men. To get away from the three men, she manages to sunbathe on the other side, only to be spotted again. Tom, the youngest, even follows her in the hope that she will become his friend. He remembers how she held him in her arms and stroked his hair. Apparently, this happens only in his imagination. When he tries to engage her in a conversation, she brushes him off saying, "If you get a kick out of seeing women in bikinis, why don’t you take a sixpenny bus ride to Lido? You’d see dozens of them, without all this mountaineering" (861). Interestingly enough, this is the only time she speaks—coldly, without emotion. In addition, while talking to Mrs. Pritchett, an airline pilot’s blonde wife, Stanley comments that some people sunbathe on the roof "as if it was a beach up there" (860). Again, this comment suggests that the woman is asserting her privilege by refusing to sunbathe on the beach like most people do.

Doris Lessing’s "A Woman on a Roof" seems to suggest that women can use their sexuality through nonverbal communication to show power and privilege. The familiar gambits of feminine wile such as smiling, glancing shyly, blushing then looking away to communicate interest in a man can also be withheld to show otherwise. Likewise, a man shows interest in a woman by trying to get her attention. He tries to present himself in a posture and stance as someone who is self-assured. When he catches the eye of the woman, he may hold her glance a little longer, and if he gets an encouraging smile, he’ll try to move in close and engage her in small talk (Hall 101). But as this story demonstrates, it is the woman who asserts her power and privilege by effectively using her sexuality through nonverbal communication to remain sunbathing on the roof for all to see. Lagging in their work, the three men are damned.

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The short story, "A Woman on a Roof," by Doris Lessing may seem to be about a few men who become annoyed with a woman because she suns herself out on her roof. The men feel that she is a distraction and are obviously bothered by her presence. They are not happy that this sunbather is out there on display and illustrate these feelings of discontent by constantly whistling and yelling at her. The men also make several rude and sexist comments to her throughout the story. In a time period such as the one this story takes place in, males were considered far superior to women, and comments such as the ones the men make would not be considered out of the ordinary. What is extremely surprising, and quite out of the ordinary, however, is the fact that this woman did not even seem bothered by their actions. When this is taken into consideration, it is revealed that the real source of the men’s anger toward the woman is not simply because she was sunning herself, but rather, was due to the fact that she showed indigence toward them in a time when women were expected to submit to men’s demands.

The men in this story obviously have strong feelings of superiority and power over the opposite sex, and expect that women will naturally give in to their demands. These feelings are illustrated as early as in the opening paragraph, when they see the woman for the first time. While working, "They made jokes about getting an egg from some woman in the flats under them, to poach it for dinner" (Lessing 856). Such a comment demonstrates the men’s beliefs about gender roles: that women will be home, not working, and eager to serve men. The comments continue; later on, when referring to the woman as being nearly naked for all to see, Harry said, "If she’s married, her old man wouldn’t like that" (857). Stanley, one of the men, adds, "If my wife lay around like that, I’d soon stop her" (857). Both quotes illustrate that the men seem to think they have some sort of control over women and their actions, and that the women would naturally abide by their demands. However, upon discovery of the woman’s refusal to respond to the men’s comments, their frustration with her escalates, and the true source of their anger becomes clear: the men are not annoyed with her just because she is a woman making a public display of herself out on her roof. Instead, they are angry with her because she is a woman who is deviating from the norm in her actions by not giving in to them.

The second day, when the men see the woman out on the rooftop again, another instance occurs in which the men became angry with her. In response to Stanley letting out a whistle, the sunbathing woman merely "lifted her head, startled, as if she’d been asleep, and looked straight over at him. The sun was in her eyes, she blinked and stared, then she dropped her head again. At this gesture of indifference, they all three , Stanley, Tom, and Harry, let out whistles and yells" (857). The men’s frustration is not merely because she is out there, but because she remains out there in defiance of what they seem to think is appropriate. Otherwise, they would have whistled and that would have been the end of it. Instead, they continued to watch, to wait and see her reaction, and when she did not seem to care, they were bothered by this.

Yet another example of the male workers becoming perturbed at the woman’s indifference to their actions comes a little later, when they once again whistle at her. This time, "She looked up at them, cold and remote, then went on reading. Again, they were furious" (858). But the men do not give up. For the third time, Stanley whistled, then proceeded to stamp his feet, yell, scream, and whistle some more. He was so angry that his face turned scarlet, but he continued with his actions, still with no success: "The woman did not move, she did not move a muscle" (860). Literary critic Orphia Jane Allen also notices that the negative actions of the workers are due to the fact that the woman is indifferent to their presence, as men, and continues sunbathing (199). Another critic, Margaret Atack, agrees. She states that the men’s true frustration is because the woman does not take any action in response to their comments (207).

It is clear that the men in this story are not upset with the woman for simply choosing her open roof as the place to sun herself, but rather for her lack of actions which followed. She continued to do as she pleased, despite the cruel words and harsh treatment she endured which were actually considered normal by society at the time. However, although society accepted this type of degrading behavior, and most women would have given in to it by leaving, the woman on the roof did not. The woman in this story was not just any woman And, while she may not have earned women the right to vote or gained women admission into institutes of higher education, she stood up for herself in a normal everyday situation, and that’s a start. She is a woman who was one of the exceptions in her era; she was not just a woman on a roof, but rather a hero of her generation.

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