@momofthreeboys So in your world, the following are effective tactics for gaining rights?
“Please sir, may I have equal work for equal pay?”
“Please sir, may I have family leave?”
“Please sir, may I have contraception covered by my insurance because it’s essential for my health?”
As Romani correctly points out, being polite has never worked to gain rights. Never. The powerful do not give up their privileges because they are asked sweetly. It takes a fight.
Do you know why you were able to vote last November? Because a bunch of angry, unfeminine, not-nice women acquired that right for you. They did not ask “Please sir, may we have the vote?” They demanded it, and they were not sweet about it.
But Harvard professor and Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich said it far better than I can:
“Well-behaved women seldom make history.”