How Does Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

Decent Essays
“Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History,” is a book by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich from which the highly-esteemed quote is derived. From political rebellions to fashion statements, women have been “misbehaving” far longer than Ulrich’s book has been around. Cleopatra’s time was from 69 BC - 30 BC, whereas Beyonce is a woman currently making history. And while Rosa Parks and Marilyn Monroe were making history within the same decade, their passions on how women ought to be seen differed vastly; Rosa Parks wanted to simply be seen as a woman despite her race, while Marilyn Monroe sought to be more than a mere housewife, she wanted to be on the big screens. The Harvard professor describes historical women who were not well-behaved as “women who are

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    During the mid seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in New England, women were not just the typical housewives. The impact they had was unimaginable. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote Good Wives to explain the roles of women’s lives and explain the neglected aspects people never considered. Furthermore, she wrote this book to describe these changing roles of the world people thought “men” controlled.…

    • 897 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Common Assignment “Remember the Ladies", said Abigail Adams to John Adams during the American Revolution. What Abigail meant by this is that to never forget the amount of work that women had to do when the men were off at war and how they had to take care of everything but are still treated as if they were nothing but house slaves. Abigail wanted for things to change for women, women now wanted more rights, they wanted to be taken seriously, and they were now willing to fight for it. During the American Revolution many people’s lives were affected in many different ways especially for women.…

    • 940 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Amanda Marcotte Sexism

    • 1111 Words
    • 4 Pages

    As human beings we don’t have the luxury of being able to choose between becoming a male or a female, and regardless of what technology has to offer in the next generations to come it should stay that way. The idea of a man or women ever being more superior to another is an absolute disgrace to our society. In order for our country to function the way it does, men and women on a daily basis must work side by side under no restrictions. In all honesty, being a male I grew up not having to deal with all the sexism that goes on in a girls every day activities. I don’t blame the strong willed women for rebelling and going against the common stereotypes that are tagged against them, I would do the same.…

    • 1111 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry (376), “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1034), and “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” by William Shakespeare (529), seem to treat women as second class citizens. Even though they are all from different eras they all three still do not speak of women in high regards. In fact, the Feminist movement would have a field day with all three. One may be a poem but it really speaks volumes of how the narrator felt about his mistress.…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nickole Brown’s “Fanny Says How To Be A Lady” is a poem describing how a lady should act. In the ten stanzas she writes about not telling your age, watching your reputation, taking it easy, steer clear of places where common people go, don’t fool with bad boys, don’t be taken for granted, being careful with your words, not letting folks think you’re trash, and fighting for what you believe. These are all powerful traits in a woman, but do they align with the twenty-first-century man? “Fanny Says How To Be A Lady” describes…

    • 1123 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Women’s role in the domestic sphere, up until very recently, has been burned into the minds of the American psyche as being something that is natural and to be expected. Women’s roles in society have constantly been shown in a negative light, particularly using religion to bring women down to a level where the patriarchal society can look down upon them and control them. Women have been shown to be feeble, weak, and less and moral than men. Women were presented as needing to be reeled in, tamed, and brought up to the standards of society. The three readings I have chosen to discuss all discuss women’s roles in American society and the way society perceives them, but through three completely perspectives.…

    • 1219 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The shock to see a person who was born as a male wearing a contoured makeup is still a shock for a great part of today’s society; not as much of a shock to see a person who was born female wearing a pixie cut and dressed in a pantsuit. However at the turn of the 20th century, a person who was born as a female but would dress as a man and even do the job of a man would be considered as threat to the greater society. At the time, woman’s status and power was inseparable from that of her husband’s reputation as well as by her reproductive potential. It was considered taboo see a woman move up the social ladder from a servitute position to an independent status where her rationality could be exposed. Throughout Vern Bullough’s, chapter on “Women…

    • 340 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In society, the voices of men and women differ substantially, especially in the 1900’s. The trials and tribulations women had to endure so that they were treated as equal to men are extravagant. Still today there are examples of women being treated unfairly. Women are very powerful, they’re successful, and they are assertive when they must be but men do not find this attractive. Men want a woman who “knows her place”, someone who won’t talk back to him or expect to be treated equally.…

    • 268 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Well-behaved women seldom make history” are you agree or disagree? Throughout the recorded history the condition of women has been a constant fee. Whether it a social status, economic state, political position, or intellectual freedom. Women have always tipped-off to address this issues to find the solution and change the history.…

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mme. Goodman returns to the front of the hall and announces, “Let us start the second course, a blanquette of fowls with truffles with a creamy pudding.” “This is delicious, Mme Goodman!” Montesquieu exclaims. “Thank you.…

    • 1120 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Princess Bride published in 1973, written by William Goldman, contains misogynistic views of women from Americans’ current view, but not necessarily through the eyes of men and women of the early 1970s. Despite the beginning of the women’s rights movement, the early 1970s was an extremely sexist time period compared to 2016. However, the 1970s, compared to previous decades, showed the beginning of women standing up for themselves and society changing for the better, slowly but surely. It is important to understand the context of women’s rights in the early 1970s to understand how the women are portrayed in Goldman’s book. Specifically, Goldman’s fictionalized character of himself reacting to his overbearing wife and the hot starlet in Hollywood…

    • 1031 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s essay Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History, is an excellent example of analytical social history, that is aimed to educate other historians, women, and others interested in social history (the history of groups that might not have participated in mainstream life), the intersectionality of women’s history, and pop-culture. Ulrich’s essay uses several rhetorical devices to create a convincing argument for the existence of collaborative history and the importance of social history, within more entrenched historical norms. Particularly, she uses different styles of narration, first focusing on her own personal life, then more typical historical examples, and finishes with a synthesis of her own personal story of historicization…

    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As a woman she must arise above scandal and maintain a position in society. Her…

    • 826 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Sexual harassment has always been, and still is, an extremely controversial topic. Some people tend to think that sexual harassment cases are all stemmed from lies made up by victims to gain attention or sympathy. Others, however, see sexual harassment as a serious crime that has been locked away in a vault and ignored by society. Whichever side one takes, the fact that sexual harassment and sexual discrimination laws play an important part in many aspects of society still stands. From the beginning of time, humans have struggled in deciding what rights certain groups should or should not have, and, slowly, everyone started to be set upon the same plane.…

    • 1258 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Changing Role of Women in the 1920s In modern day society, a woman raising a family and having a career is considered to be the norm. Historically, women were expected to exert modesty in the way they chose to dress and behave, as well as staying at home and performing the duties as a wife, mother, and homemaker. Women’s current modern day role and participation within society and the family household is due to the emergence of change that began in the 1920’s.…

    • 1466 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays