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Textual Analysis of Well behaved Women Seldom Make History

“Well behaved women seldom make history” is a slightly altered version of the quote where seldom should say rarely. In the essay written by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Ulrich begins her essay by recounting a time that one of her formal students from California emailed her because she had been seeing her slightly altered quote of ‘well-behaved women seldom make history’ on bumper stickers, T-shirts, tote bags, coffee mugs, and more. The alteration of the quote is what Ulrich says made her famous because many women used it as a way to show their stance on feminism and empowering the female perspective of society, showing that women do not have to be quiet.

The women that you see in history and the ones that you are taught through your years of school are the women who would not be considered ‘well-behaved.’ As Ulrich explains, the reason the quote itself had gotten so famous and well-known is that women are taught to be quiet and behaved, not to speak out of turn and to be there to cook and clean while the husband or the ‘man’ of the relationship does everything else. Women are taught to be quiet and understanding, but in this society, women are fighting back to have the same rights and powers that men do. Many women found Ulrich’s words to be self-empowering because women are expected to not be well-behaved or quiet, and it started a small revolution of women fighting back to be who they want to be and how they want to be. Just because you are a woman, you do not have to be quiet and well-behaved, and you could do what you wanted to because you control your own life.

Since birth, girls are raised differently than boys, the whole ‘boys will be boys,’ and ‘girls can’t play with cars!’ situations most girls have found themselves in at one point or another. “Many people think women are less visible in history than men….their job is to bind the wounds, stir the soup, and bear the children of those whose mission is to fight wars, rule nations, and define the cosmos.” (666) Women have always been expected to act like a woman quiet, non-provoking kind of woman. But, many women now are fighting the norm because the only women who have made history are those who did not behave.

To help readers better understand what she meant by saying ‘well-behaved women seldom make history,’ Ulrich put in examples of women in history that are only known because of the things they did and how they were not well-behaved.

One of these women is a girl named Mae West. West was a woman who was well known for her misbehavior, including her line of ‘when I’m bad, I’m better.’ she was known for her sultry dancing and overall way that she acts. The quote from the essay also shows more of how West was not a behaved woman. “She allowed people to imagine the unimaginable. Because she was also a savvy businesswoman, she was able to live off other peoples fantasies.” (668)

Another woman that Ulrich addresses on in her writing is the well-known Rosa Parks. Parks is a woman who is known by most people because of one thing she did. During the time of segregation-a time where those who were black and white were separated, unable to do the same things. Everything at the time was divided between the blacks and the whites, there were even water fountains only whites could use but blacks could not. The reason that Parks had become so famous was one day, she had just gotten from work and was seated on a bus near the front, the place where whites were supposed to sit and if you were black you had to sit in the back. Rosa refused to give her seat up to someone who was white and was therefore arrested.

“Well behaved women seldom make history’ is less about the line itself, but rather more about how far women have come, breaking out of their shells and not being ‘behaved.’ Every woman in history is there because she was not molded to the expectations of a lady. A line that is so simple, just slightly altered made what some people would think could be a revolution. Women do not have to be well-behaved, “because well-behaved women seldom make history.”

Ulrich. Laurel Thatcher. “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History.” The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings and Handbook. 4th ed., by Richard Bullock, Maureen Daly Goggin, and Francine Weinberg, 2016, pp. 926-29.