Community Chat

[kittymomNC]

I was sitting at a stoplight today and saw the bumper stickers on the car in front of me. One was by Ghandi, but when I saw this one, I forgot what the other one was about!

"Well-behaved women seldom make history."

I was so taken aback I almost forgot to go when the light turned green! That statement can go in so many directions...it depends partly on what your own perception of "well-behaved" means. The Oxford Dictionary says it means: Conducting oneself in an appropriate manner: And then that leads to what is appropriate in any given situation.

There are really well-behaved women who have made historical contributions to society and /or to our country. Then there are middle-of-the-road women, who may not always be SO well-behaved, who have made history as well, and in a good way. And there are women who have no clue what "well-behaved" means, but they've made another kind of "history" in their own way!

I was curious to see what other people take from that statement. I started to say other "women", but then I remembered that we have some gentlemen here, too! All thoughts are welcome!

[scotttie]

Well, I'm sure Eleanore Roosevelt would be impressed to read that sticker!

[Preds]

Well behaved women don't make waves. Strong women make currents ... All in how you read it!

[NoelSeven]

It's a really old phrase from the 2nd wave of feminism.

It means, get out there and do what you need to do, what you want to do. Don't let anyone tell you nice girls don't do things like play sports, join the military, etc.

[kittymomNC]

On 9/19/2014 Preds said:

Well behaved women don't make waves. Strong women make currents ... All in how you read it!

That's a good one! That bumper sticker is liable to cause an accident!

[NoelSeven]

On 9/19/2014 scotttie said:

Well, I'm sure Eleanore Roosevelt would be impressed to read that sticker!

She would have been, she was an early feminist and did what she wanted to do, including her airplane jaunts with Amelia Earhart

[dooBdoo]

Hi, kittymomNC!

I've learned many of those quotes attributed to Gandhi are misattributed. In fact, I seldom use a quote these days without checking the authenticity first.

Here's some background on the quote itself:

"Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (born July 11, 1938), is a historian of early America and the history of women and a university professor at Harvard University.^[1] Ulrich's innovative and widely influential approach to history has been described as a tribute to "the silent work of ordinary people"—an approach that, in her words, aims to "show the interconnection between public events and private experience."

Writing an article about little-studied Puritan funeral services, Ulrich included the phrase "well-behaved women seldom make history."^[2] The phrase was picked up and soon was widely quoted and printed across the country. It continues to be seen on greeting cards, T-shirts, mugs, plaques, and bumper stickers.

She recounted how her now-famous quote has taken on a life of its own in an October 2007 interview: "It was a weird escape into popular culture. I got constant e-mails about it, and I thought it was humorous. Then I started looking at where it was coming from. Once I turned up as a character in a novel - and a tennis star from India wore the T-shirt at Wimbledon.

It seemed like a teaching moment - and so I wrote a book using the title."^[3] Well-Behaved Women examines the ways in which women shaped history, citing examples from the lives of Rosa Parks, Christine de Pizan, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, and Virginia Woolf. ..."

more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Thatcher_Ulrich

[adelle38]

On 9/19/2014 Preds said:

Well behaved women don't make waves. Strong women make currents ... All in how you read it!

That's my interpretation. In this case, well behaved means staying in the boundaries that society sets regardless of whether those boundaries are just.

[NoelSeven]

On 9/19/2014 adelle38 said:

On 9/19/2014 Preds said:

Well behaved women don't make waves. Strong women make currents ... All in how you read it!

That's my interpretation. In this case, well behaved means staying in the boundaries that society sets regardless of whether those boundaries are just.

[scotttie]

On 9/19/2014 NoelSeven said:

On 9/19/2014 scotttie said:

Well, I'm sure Eleanore Roosevelt would be impressed to read that sticker!

She would have been, she was an early feminist and did what she wanted to do, including her airplane jaunts with Amelia Earhart

Point being, Eleanor Roosevelt was well behaved.