> "At the state teachers' convention in Rochester she* sat
> silently with other women teachers in the back of the hall.
> The women listened to men teachers talk about the low status of
> their profession. Why, they asked, were teachers not treated
> with the same respect accorded to doctors and lawyers? Anthony
> rose from her seat and asked to be recognized. A half-hour
> debate followed in which male teachers tried to decide if a
> woman should be allowed to speak. After a close vote, Anthony
> was given the floor.
>
>   It seems to me, gentlemen, that none of you quite comprehend
>   the cause of the disrespect of which you complain. Do you
>   not see that so long as society says a woman is incompetent
>   to be a lawyer, minister, or doctor, but has ample ability to
>   be a teacher, that every man of you who chooses this
>   profession tacitly acknowledges that he has no more brains
>   than a woman. And this too is the reason that teaching is
>   less a lucrative profession, as here men must compete with
>   the cheap labor of women. Would you exalt your profession,
>   exalt those who labor with you. Would you make it more
>   lucrative, increase the salaries of the women engaged in the
>   novel work of educating our future Presidents, Senators, and
>   Congressmen."
>
> * Susan B. Anthony, 1852
>   from _A History of Women in America_ by Carol Hymowitz and
>   Michaele Weissman (New York: Bantam Books, 1978 -- but I got
>   it last year)