One aspect of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse that especially caught my attention was the overt mention of gender roles and gender expectations. While in reading literature, especially from the early 1900s, it is not unlikely to see indicators of the separation between sexes, but I feel like Woolf is much more explicit in her mention of the distinction between males and females. This is especially prevalent in the relationship between Mrs. Ramsey and Mr. Ramsey. We see that Mr. Ramsey makes all of the decisions for the family where Mrs. Ramsey is viewed simply as a beautiful woman who cares for her 8 children. The most infuriating example of this is present on pages 120-125 where Mrs. Ramsey decides to read in bed with her husband. Woolf writes how Mr. Ramsey thought it was cute and funny that his wife would even dare try to read advanced literature. Mr. Ramsey would prefer that rather than trying to understand novels that would clearly be too far over her head, that Mrs. Ramsey would sit in admiration of him. ( GAG ME!!)

                Woolf also seems to satirically point to the gender beliefs during the time in which she wrote the novel when she writes how Mrs. Ramsey understands “masculine intelligence” when she thinks “What did it all mean? To this day she had no notion. A square root? What was that? Her sons knew” (107).  As someone who would consider themselves a feminist reading  this in 2015, I found this part of the novel (in addition to many others) almost too difficult to stomach as women are made to be fickle and unintelligent. If this part wasn’t bad enough I was also struck by the selection on page 88 that asserts “”one never gets anything world by having post-“ that was the sort of thing they were always saying. They made men say that sort of thing. Yes, it was pretty well true, he thought. They never got anything worth having from one year’s end to another. They did nothing but talk, talk, talk, eat, eat, eat. It was the women’s fault. Women made civilization impossible with their “charm,” all their silliness” (88).  While I am annoyed by these type of sections I am left wondering what Woolf was trying to show by making such clear distinctions about gender in this novel. I read these examples as satirical comments on the state of women, but I am not certain. Hopefully we will be able to answer this question in class!