March is Women's History Month and it seemed appropriate to reflect upon what people have said about women over the years. Herewith a collection of some of our favorites, not necessarily that we agree with them but that they give us either food for thought or a laugh. We leave it to our readers to decide which is which:
Men their rights and nothing more; women their rights and nothing less.
Susan B. Anthony, 1868
Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and women in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours.
Grover Cleveland, 1905
No woman has ever told the truth of her life. The autobiographies of most famous women are a series of accounts of the outward existence, of petty details and anecdotes which give no realization of their real life. For the great moments of joy or agony they remain strangely silent.
Isadora Duncan, 1927
I believe that all women, but especially housewives, tend to think in lists...The idea of a series of items, following one another docilely, forms the only possible reasonable approach to life if you have to live it with a home and a husband and children, none of whom would dream of following one another docilely.
Shirley Jackson, 1953
By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1955
Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.
Attributed to Gloria Steinem
Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.
Charlotte Whitton, 1963
Feminism is the most revolutionary idea there has ever been. Equality for women demands a change in the human psyche more profound than anything Marx dreamed of. It means valuing parenthood as much as we value banking.
Polly Toynbee, 1987
E.F.B.