I have a friend who’s trying to put together a list of some historical women who fit the above quotation. Does anyone have any suggestions for people we could look up?
What woman of note does behave herself? Women’s history is loaded with examples.
For example, there’s Victoria Claflin Woodhull who was the first woman presidential candidate and with her sister, Tennessee, raised more than a few eyebrows.
Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting in the 1872 presidential election.
Margaret Sanger was a nurse who was indicted and sent to jail for daring to distribute information on birth control. She went on to found Planned Parenthood.
I’m not going to deprive your friend of the joy of doing the research on this topic, but suffice it to say, there’s more than enough information out there. The National Women’s History Project is a good start.
::MsRobyn sings a rousing chorus of “I Am Woman”::
Robin
Eve. Of Adam & Eve fame. Not the SDMB Eve.
On the other hand…
Is your friend looking for examples of well-behaved women who made history, well-behaved women who didn’t make history, misbehaving women who made history or misbehaving women who didn’t make history?
Was’nt Margaret Sanger an early advocate of eugenics? I had always heard that she was a racist who founded Planned Parenthood,and fought to make abortions legal because she wanted to keep down the population of certain groups of people, like blacks, new Irish and Italian immigrants, and others she deemed inferior. Does anyone know if this is true or not?
As Otto has noted, the goal here is unclear.
I don’t recall Mme. Curie being notably rowdy.
Most of the anti-Sanger articles I’ve seen come from rabid anti-choice organizations, which I hardly consider to be unbiased sources. A number of them talk about her alleged involvement with something called “The Negro Project” but don’t discuss specifics of her involvement. I found this article which quotes actual scholars on her involvement with the eugenics movement.
How about that firebrand, Rosa Parks 
Just off the top of my head:
Clara Barton
Florence Nightingale
Dorthea Dix
Madam Curie
Jackie Kennedy
Grace Kelly
Sally Ride
Emelia Earhart
Sandra Day O’Connor
A whole slew of authors, poets and musicians.
Betsy Ross
Mary (you know, Jesus’ mom)
Sakaguia (the Indian woman who is on hte $1 coin)
are 3 that come to mind right now.
No examples to add (Wait – how about Joan of Arc?), but the quote reminds me of one of my favorite George Brnard Shaw quotes…although his is about men:
“The Reasonable Man adapts himself to the world. The Unreasonable Man expects the world to adapt to him. All progress, theefore, depends upon the Unreasonable Man.” Or Woman, I might add.
Emmy Noether invented (or discovered) large pieces of abstract algebra.
Rosalind Franklin measured the structure of DNA, but got little credit for it.
The French chemist Lise Meitner discovered several chemical elements and recently had an element named for her.
Would just like to point out that in general, well behaved PEOPLE rarely make history. Future generations are not interested in those individuals who only walked the line and maintained the status quo… they are interested in the ones that broke the mold.
Cal that is a killer quote! hahaha
She was born in Austria, worked in Berlin for several years, then fled to Sweden before WWII. Later she moved to Great Britain. As far as I know, she never lived in France.
For Uppity Women of All Time, I nominate the first and only Queen of India: Raziyah, Muslim monarch of the Delhi Sultanate in the 13th century. She proved to be a politically astute ruler and a powerful warrior queen. She was eventually defeated on the battlefield by a rebellious governor, captured, and put to death.
Speaking of nationalities…can someone please explain to me why it’s logical to refer to Dr. Marie Sklodowska Curie as “Madame”?
Marie Sklodowska was born and raised in Poland. She completed her higher education in France, where she met her future husband, Pierre Curie. So “Madame” is the title of her husband’s country for his wife…which has nothing to do with her nationality, her studies, or any of her work in physics.
Of course when referring to her socially, I’m fairly certain she would have been Mme. Curie…but why do professional scientists refer to her as the originator of scientific work that way? Did she seriously request “Oh, don’t call me Doctor…that feels so silly! Call me by my naturalized country’s term for a wife!”
I realize that some folks may look at this as revisionist history. However, if we’re going to treat scientists of all races with equal respect today, regardless of what treatment they received in their lifetime, we need to treat scientists of both genders with equal respect. Dr. Curie worked her entire life, and even died, for her studies. She deserves as much respect as Dr. Fermi, Dr. Einstein, and the many other Ph. D. holders we revere.
Corr
Helena- I could help, but I need some stuff cleared up.
Are you looking for well-behaved women in history, or women who were not well-behaved?
Second, what do you define as “well-behaved”? Would Eleanor Roosevelt qualify as “well-behaved” for having been a polite adjunct to FDR, or not because she defied polite society to support integration?