"Well behaved women rarely make history" --examples?

Factual Questions
21

I think it’s because “Dr. Curie” is ambiguous. Please note the existence of the male Dr. Curie. Like it or not, it has been customary to refer to a man by his last name only, thus making it necessary to refer to his wife (should she have the same last name) by some other designation. I would be happy to extend this to mean that we can’t refer to Pierre as “Dr. Curie” either.

Would you prefer “Mme. Dr. Curie”? “Dr. Marie Curie”? I have seen her referred to simply as “Marie Curie”, which is non-ambiguous and seems no less respectful then the “Albert Einstein” and “Steven Hawking” I’ve often seen.

22

I would think Mother Teresa would qualify as a nice woman who made history. As has been noted, though, I’m not sure that’s what the OP is asking.

23

I would just like to point out that the type of minds that would be likely to support a statement like the OP title would consider any woman who made history to be misbehaving, which makes it a catch-22.

Also, wasn’t the Betsy-Ross-making-the-first-American-flag thing shown to be a story popularized by her decendents to increase their status with the DAR / Blueblood crowd? I thought two senators designed and commisioned the first official US flag. Don’t get upset and flame me here, 'cause I heard this and I am just asking. History would have been very different if we would have stuck with the “don’t tread on me” design, though. Sort of a much stronger self-imposed issolationist thing, really.

24

It would be helpful if Helena returned to clear up the ambiguity over whether she wants examples that prove or disprove the quote. However, the fact that everybody is able to very easily to find examples either way would suggest that the quote is pretty meaningless.

A few historical examples: Boaedicea, Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria, the Oracle of Delphi (not one person but a series of women over time)…

I wouldn’t want to be the one who decided whether any of these people were well or badly behaved.

25

I’ve always taken the quote to mean “women who’ve made a pain in the ass of themselves”. I chose to give examples of women who have risked jail time and governmental harrassment in order to achieve their goals. However, I also gave the link on the off chance that that’s not what she meant.

Robin

26

Edith Cowan, a Western Australian, was the first woman elected to parliament anywhere in the world.