Review Topics

Americans have internalized the value that mothers of young children should be mothers first and foremost, and not paid workers. The result is that a substantial amount of confusion, ambivalence, guilt, and anxiety is experienced by working mothers. Our cultural expectations of mother and realities of female participation in the labor force are directly contradictory.
—Ruth E. Zambrana, U.S. researcher, M. Hurst, and R.L. Hite. “The Working Mother in Contemporary Perspectives: A Review of Literature,” Pediatrics (December 1979)

I listen to hear the voice of a Governor, Commander-in-Chief of the forces of Massachusetts. I hear only the creaking of crickets and the hum of insects which now fill the summer air. The Governor’s exploit is to review the troops on muster days. I have seen him on horseback, with his hat off, listening to a chaplain’s prayer. It chances that that is all I have ever seen of a Governor. I think that I could manage to get along without one. If he is not the least use to prevent my being kidnapped, pray of what important use is he likely to be to me? When freedom is most endangered, he dwells in the deepest obscurity. A distinguished clergyman told me that he chose the profession of a clergyman because it afforded the most leisure for literary pursuits. I would recommend to him the profession of a Governor.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

The thanksgiving of the old Jew, “Lord, I thank Thee that Thou didst not make me a woman,” doubtless came from a careful review of the situation. Like all of us, he had fortitude enough to bear his neighbors’ afflictions.
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)