Oh I love Spring Break! I finally have time to procrastinate homework and write blog entries!!
Ok so I was reading that quote, "Well behaved women rarely make history" (by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich) and I was thinking about the validity of that statement.
While now I think it serves primarily as an excuse to do what ever sexy, dirty, and downright fun acts we want, it builds on the gender expectation that women should be calm, chaste, caring, quiet and gentle. This is how we are supposed to "behave."
Now this quote refers to women who have broken that mold and lived life on their own terms. I'm going to pick a few famous women I think fit the bill and examine how exactly they've misbehaved.
Ok first I'm going to go with Alice Paul. She saw
the women's suffrage movement to the very end, getting thrown in jail and starting a hunger strike in the process. All she was trying to do was make men and women a little more equal. She wasn't asking for much, just the right to vote. Is this really misbehaving?
Next Marilyn Monroe. A sex icon. I think that about sums it up. Now how was she misbehaving? She was having lots of sex with lots of men. Kind of like men do with women....
So far we have Alice Paul who was trying to tackle gender equality and Marilyn Monroe who was behaving like a man. A pattern?
What about women who made history even though they are remembered for generally behaving well? Jackie Kennedy for instance. Well I propose that she only achieved such success because of her attachments to men. Jackie Kennedy would not have been able to make such contributions to the world if not for her marriage to President John F Kennedy.
So the lesson here ladies is there are only two ways to make history: Marry an influential man or act like a man.
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