Our Town Gender Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Act.Line). Every time a character talks counts as one line, even if what they say turns into a long monologue.

Quote #1

Well, of course, it’s none of my business – but I think if a person starts out to be a teacher, she ought to stay one. (I.66)

The eleven-year-old Joe Crowell is disappointed when his schoolteacher leaves teaching for married life.

Quote #2

Well…I don’t have to tell you that we’re run here by a Board of Selectmen. – All males vote at the age of twenty-one. Women vote indirect. We’re lower middle class: sprinkling of professional men… ten per cent illiterate laborers. Politically, we’re eight-six per cent Republicans; six per cent Democrats; four per cent Socialists; rest, indifferent. Religiously, we’re eighty-five per cent Protestants; twelve per cent Catholics; rest, indifferent. (I.224-5)

Women aren’t allowed to vote!

Quote #3

It was your mother chopping wood. There you see your mother – getting up early; cooking meals all day long; washing and ironing; – and still she has to go out in the back yard and chop wood. I suppose she just got tired of asking you. She just gave up and decided it was easier to do it herself. And you eat her meals, and put on the clothes she keeps nice for you, and you run off and play baseball, – like she’s some hired girl we keep around the house but that we don’t like very much. Well, I knew all I had to do was call your attention to it. (I.353)

Mrs. Gibbs is a hard worker; Mr. Gibbs has to remind their son not to treat her like a servant!