Well-Behaved Women Don't Make History

There's a neon sign on my wall. Well-behaved women don't make history.

Most people think Marilyn Monroe said it. She didn't.

A historian named Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote it in 1976, and her real words were "well-behaved women seldom make history." She wasn't telling anyone to break the rules. She was pointing out that the women who did everything right were never written down. The midwives. The mothers. The ones who showed up every day and held it all together, quietly.

For years the line went around without her name on it. It ended up on mugs and t-shirts, credited to Marilyn Monroe, Eleanor Roosevelt and plenty of others. Somewhere in there "seldom" became "don't," and a line about being overlooked turned into a dare.

That's the version I love, the original version. It's the reason the sign is on my wall.

Most of the women who lie down on my bed are those women. They carry a great deal, and nobody is keeping a record of it. So for an hour, somebody takes care of them instead. That's what I built my room around.

I see myself in them, too. I've never needed the attention in a room. I'd rather sit back, observe, and carry myself with poise.

People say closed mouths don't get fed. I understand the saying, but being quiet has never held me back. I'm here.

I've come to believe the right energy speaks for itself. It keeps moving in the right direction, and it carries you with it.

History may never write most of us down. That doesn't make the work any smaller. The woman who shows up every day and holds it all together is making history in somebody's life. I see it from my side of the bed, and I'm keeping the record.