Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History Quotes

“Well-behaved women seldom make history.”
― Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

“Some history-making is intentional; much of it is accidental. People make history when they scale a mountain, ignite a bomb, or refuse to move to the back of the bus. But they also make history by keeping diaries, writing letters, or embroidering initials on linen sheets. History is a conversation and sometimes a shouting match between present and past, though often the voices we most want to hear are barely audible. People make history by passing on gossip, saving old records, and by naming rivers, mountains, and children. Some people leave only their bones, though bones too make a history when someone notices.”
― Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

“To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.”
― Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

“Most well-behaved women are too busy living their lives to think about recording what they do and too modest about their own achievements to think anybody else will care.”
― Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

“If well-behaved women seldom make history, it is not only because gender norms have constrained the range of female activity but because history hasn't been very good at capturing the lives of those whose contributions have been local and domestic. For centuries, women have sustained local communities, raising food, caring for the sick, and picking up the pieces after wars.”
― Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

“Well-behaved women make history when they do the unexpected, when they create and preserve records and when later generations care.”
― Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

“But like other well-behaved women they chose to obey God rather than men.”
― Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

“Some people are happy to give feminists credit for things they fear—like abortion rights, contraception for teenagers, or gay liberation—but less willing to acknowledge that feminist activism brought about things they support, like better treatment for breast cancer or the opportunity for young girls to play soccer as well as lead cheers.

As Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon observe, "Although the word 'feminist' has become a pejorative term for to some American women, most women (and most men as well) support a feminist program: equal education, equal pay, child care, freedom from harassment and violence," and so on.”
― Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History