WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Suffrage Songs and Verses cover

Suffrage Songs and Verses

Chapter 7: Boys Will Be Boys
Open in WeRead

About This Book

A collection of poems and songs that urge women's political enfranchisement and social reform, blending moral argument, satire, and lyrical reflection. Several pieces reframe motherhood and domestic labor as public responsibilities, converting private care into a reason for civic participation; others mock anti-suffrage rationales and challenge female passivity. The verse alternates earnest exhortation, vivid domestic scenes, and rallying refrains to encourage collective action, education, and self-recognition. Overall it presents suffrage as necessary for family welfare and social progress, urging women to move from seclusion to engaged public life.

BOYS WILL BE BOYS f

“Boys will be boys,” and boys have had their day;
Boy-mischief and boy-carelessness and noise
Extenuated all, allowed, excused and smoothed away,
Each duty missed, each damaging wild act,
By this meek statement of unquestioned fact—
Boys will be boys!
Now, “women will be women.” Mark the change;
Calm motherhood in place of boisterous youth;
No warfare now; to manage and arrange,
To nurture with wise care, is woman’s way,
In peace and fruitful industry her sway,
In love and truth.