To the Lighthouse Gender Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #7

It was the same as the bulls all over again—she had no control over her emotions, Andrew thought. Women hadn’t. The wretched Paul had to pacify her. The men (Andrew and Paul at once became manly, and different from usual) took counsel briefly and decided that they would plant Rayley’s stick where they had sat and come back at low tide again. (1.14.8)

According to Andrew, women are incapable of controlling their emotions. Andrew and Paul step up to the bat, so to speak, and assert their masculinity to deal with the problem of finding Minta’s brooch.

Quote #8

"Do you write many letters, Mr. Tansley?" asked Mrs. Ramsay, pitying him too, Lily supposed; for that was true of Mrs. Ramsay—she pitied men always as if they lacked something—women never, as if they had something. He wrote to his mother; otherwise he did not suppose he wrote one letter a month, said Mr. Tansley, shortly. (1.17.8)

According to Lily, Mrs. Ramsay pities men but never women because women are complete whereas men are lacking in something.

Quote #9

For he was not going to talk the sort of rot these condescended to by these silly women. He had been reading in his room, and now he came down and it all seemed to him silly, superficial, flimsy. Why did they dress? He had come down in his ordinary clothes. He had not got any dress clothes. "One never gets anything worth having by 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 civilisation impossible with all their "charm," all their silliness. (1.17.9)

Mr. Tansley is ill at ease at the dinner table, and blames "women" for it. He seems to think that the presence of women demands he get dressed for dinner, conversing on light topics, and bear their silliness, etc.