Sometimes, I write these things for my classes. The words just spew themselves out of my brain. I just write it to get it done because it's late and I just want to watch tv because who in their right mind does homework after 9:00? Certainly not me.
And then I come up with sentences like this (incredibly cheesy, but somehow they have a little truth to them, and they always seem to give me a good grade):
As
I’ve begun my foray into women’s history, including reading these articles, it
has been brought home to me what it means to be a women’s historian; and part of
that includes recording your own history....Believing that our own history is important
enough to write down ourselves is where women’s history really begins in my
opinion. Because if you don’t believe that your own story is important, why
would you study the lives of women in the past? Cherishing the ordinary in our
day is protecting the extraordinary for our posterity.... A true historian doesn’t just live in archives
and dusty pages. A true historian lives in the present, looking toward the
future, but always being inspired by the past.
This makes me gag a little because it's so cliche sounding. But it's true right?
Also, on a side note, this is really where the phrase "Well-behaved women seldom make history" comes from. If you contextualize it, the author is actually talking about Puritan women, who are not in textbooks at all. They were stoic, pious, virtuous women. Her point in coining that phrase is meant to be ironic. Well-behaved women seldom do make it into the history books.
But maybe they should.
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