History, as it were, is not what happened in the past, per se, but what the future generations choose to remember. The presumption that well-behaved women are invisible gives credence to the notion that women can only be noticed if they rebel and do not comply with this norm. On the other hand, the article can be construed to mean that only misbehaving women have the opportunity of making history. In effect, they do not leave an indelible mark on people’s minds and are thus unable to make history. The same thing is what is happening to well-behaved women who do not elicit real attention as history makers due to their feminine nature. In this regard, when no one cares about some aspects of history, they are usually discarded and forgotten. Most well-behaved women seem to be missing in such written records because they did not meet the standards of a patriarchal culture that views them as inferior. History is primarily a function of written records that can retrace outspoken people’s actions either through court records, diaries, or newspapers (Ulrich). Therefore, well-behaved women are less likely to be captured by history because of their sexuality, obedience, and innocence.Īccording to the article, the overt actions of men make them more likely to be remembered in history than women. However, women can only make an impact if they rebel or make noise against the prescribed norms. Many historical writings are done by men who see women as unimportant. This ambiguity is related to how history is written in that it is a product of a patriarchal culture that perceives women as insignificant when compared to their male counterparts. On the other hand, it also shows that society can only recognize the actions of women if they are regarded as misbehavior. Historically, American popular culture has largely ignored women because of their feminism and treats them as objects meant to perform unobtrusive roles in a society devoid of fame.

Well-behaving women’s historical roles are regarded as subservient to those of men. On the one hand, it reveals a society that rarely captures the achievements of women because of their assumed roles and stereotypes of being female, innocent, and obedient (Ulrich). As a reader, the first sentence hooked me because it was not straightforward but ambiguous. One group of people might interpret the saying to mean that only misbehaving women are most likely to make history.

The essay by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich entitled “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History” examines her slogan’s ambiguity on how well-behaved women rarely make history.

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