Everyday Canvas

Women: Well-Behaved v.s. History-Making

Prompt: Well behaved women seldom make history. Do you agree?

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I don’t have the actual data on that, but based on what I notice on the average and from what I remember in history, that idea seems to hold true. This is because the term “well-behaved” has to do with women’s accepting and adapting to the society, civilization and the time they are in.

Take Amelia Earhart for example. What she did in her time, I am sure, made many people cross their brows and shake their heads at her, but she did make history.

Only very few of these history-making women, such as Madame Curie, are standouts in their time of the collective consciousness of a group, family, or nation. Other women, however, had to break barriers, get into mischief, or do the unthinkable. Their stories are full of adventure, romance, loss, and victory.

The history of the well-behaved woman is often a secondary history, a backdrop to a man’s successes. We see the well behaved women serving tea at document-signings, caring for the wounded men, staying home to care for the children, and standing off to the side at men’s election victories. Even today’s women, whose famous husbands have cheated on them, stand by them at the news conferences to support them through their mischiefs and ordeals.

On the contrary, the so-called misbehaving women excel and create new horizons when threatened by personal, economic, political, and racial obstacles. These are radical women and they inspire radical concepts to mankind. That’s how they make history.

For me, both types of women are fine women, as long as they are happy with their choices and comfortable in the lives they choose for themselves.