Why does the narrator believe 19th-century women writers focused on the novel?

Until really the 19th Century, and not really even then, Woolf says that women writers have been hampered by their lack of independence. Writing, along with so many other things, was not something that was considered acceptable for women, unless within certain boundaries. Woolf goes on to say that unless you have “money and a room of one’s own” you can’t write fiction. By which she means ‘independence’ and ‘freedom’.

This is an excerpt taken from a really great article on the subject. Please take a look at it in my source link below.