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and the treatment of delinquent children, subjects dealt with in Society and Politics. Gender Roles and Status of Women Nightingale held that women had the same rights to develop their abilities, to become perfect, in her terms, as men. She herself seems to have been remarkably free of gender role stereotyping. When she wanted women to become nurses rather than doctors this was not from convention (there were scarcely any trained women nurses outside religious orders) but from her conviction that nursing, which would include midwifery, was more useful than medicine. It must be remembered that medicine at that time offered few cures for disease and that treatments still included leeching and blistering. Nightingale totally rejected the double sexual standard so prevalent in her time. That is, she refused to believe that men and women were fundamentally different in their sexual drives, so that men had to have other women if deprived of their wives, the Army’s excuse for condoning prostitution. The two sexes had the same moral responsibilities, she held, and a common moral nature. Yet Nightingale was often critical of women. She felt that women did not take up the opportunities they had, notably in nursing. She began her post-Crimea work with a dedicated band of male collaborators , but no women. She seems sometimes to have been oblivious to the fact that women were not then permitted in the professions. Nightingale complained that women did not know the names of Cabinet ministers, the ranks in the Army or which churches had bishops and which not, all of which information was available in almanacs and other reference books (Cook, Life 2:14-15). She decried women’s desire for love, to be loved that is, but failure at sympathy, that is the ability to feel the situation of another. When Nightingale complained in 1861 that she had left no school behind her, that her work had taken no hold among women, she was speaking too soon. The only particularly worthy women she knew then were not collaborators in the same way Sutherland, Farr, Robert Rawlinson and Edwin Chadwick (1800-90) were; they may have been able, helped and sympathized, but did not strategize: her friends Selina Bracebridge and Mary Clarke Mohl (1793-1882), the ‘‘madre,’’ Laure de Ste Colombe (1806-86), her cousin, an artist, Hilary Bonham Carter, Dr Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910), ‘‘Rev Mother’’ Mary Themes / 69 Clare Moore (1814-74), nurse Jane Shaw Stewart (d. 1905), and author Harriet Martineau. Yet, though it is true that her early collaborators were exclusively men this would soon change. In nursing itself there would be many women whom she unequivocally respected: notably Rachel Williams (1840-1908), Jane Styring, Angelique Pringle (1842-1921), Amy Hughes, Mrs Fellowes, as well as others for whom there was enormous respect and fondness, but mixed with frustration: for example, Sarah Wardroper (c1813-92) and Agnes Jones (1832-68). Of course Nightingale’s vision of nursing was as a woman-led profession. Nightingale’s exasperation in working with Dr Sutherland appears throughout their lengthy exchange of notes. Not so well known is the close and warm relationship with his wife, ‘‘the best of all my wives,’’ as Nightingale described her.37 A letter late in life from Mrs Sutherland recalls ‘‘how deeply and truly I feel all your love and kindnesses from the first hour we met until now. God bless you always and return all your loving thoughtfulnesses a thousandfold onto your own head, blessings in being blessed.’’ It closes with ‘‘ever your affectionate and grateful.’’38 In the Franco-Prussian War Nightingale was deeply impressed by the relief work done by Caroline Werckner (to whom she left money in her will). By the Egyptian and African campaigns of the 1880s there were women more like herself, able to take initiatives, expose injustices , demand inquiries, write reports, etc., notably Amy Hawthorn. Later still we will see her advising her friend, historian Alice Stopford Green (1847-1929), on her candidacy to become Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge and generally taking an interest in women’s education . She supported the work of Anne Jemima Clough (1820-92) in girls’ education and later in the founding of Newnham College, Cambridge . She corresponded with Jane (Mrs Nassau) Senior (1828-77), the first woman Poor Law inspector and a social reformer. Nightingale’s relationship with Adeline Paulina Irby was fraught with frustration (as will be clear in Society and Politics), for Irby was not a lover of facts...

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