Laura Ingalls Wilder on Career Women

"It makes our hearts thrill and our heads rise proudly to think that women were found capable and eager to do such important work in the crisis of war-time days (World War I). I think that never again will anyone have the courage to say that women could not run world affairs if necessary. Also, it is true that when men or women have advance, they do not go back. History does not retrace its steps.
But this too is certain. We must advance logically, in order, and all together if the ground gained is to be held. If what has hitherto been women's work in the world is simply left undone by them, there is no one else to take it up. If in their haste to do other, perhaps more showy things, their old and special work is neglected and only half done, there will be something seriously wrong with the world, for the commonplace home work of women is the very foundation upon which everything else rests.
So if we wish to go more into world affairs, to have the time to work at public work, we must arrange our old duties in some way so that it will be possible. We cannot leave things at loose ends, no good housemother can do that; and we have been good housekeepers so long that we have the habit of finishing our work up neatly.