Mrs. Ramsay feels protective towards men because of the boyish reverence “something trustful, childlike” they offer her and other women. In reflection, she contrasts this with what she thinks her daughters feel, the “infidel ideas which they had brewed for themselves of a life different from hers; in Paris, perhaps; a wilder life; not always taking care of some man or other.” This association between Paris, the mecca for Western expatriates, and the rejection of traditional gender roles goes to the very heart of modernism.