Since it's #internationalwomensday I wanna bring up a big pet peeve about that famous quote, "Well-behaved women seldom make history." The historian who wrote it in 1976 didn't mean it the way we use it.
When people slap the phrase on T-shirts and bumper stickers, they use it as a license to be loud and disruptive. Which, fine, shit needs disrupting.
But what Laurel Thatcher Ulrich meant was that history consistently overlooks women who were NOT agitators -- those who quietly toiled, struggled and worked tirelessly.
It's a call to recognize all kinds of work and all kinds of people as valuable, not just men and not just those who are loud, or privileged, or who are actively setting out to be noticed.
So, no offense if you have a shirt or a bumper sticker or whatever. But it doesn't mean what you think it means. Shoutout to Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and anyone shining a spotlight on all kinds of women's work.
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