Keep clear of the jargon about the ‘rights’ of women, which urges women to do all that men do, merely because men do it, & without regard to whether this is the best that women can do; and of that which urges women to do nothing men do, merely because they are women, & should be ‘recalled to a sense of their duty as women’ & because ‘this is women’s work’ & ‘this is men’s’ & ‘these are things which women should not do’ which is all assertion & nothing more
You do not want the effect of your good things to be ‘How wonderful for a woman!’;nor would you be deterred from good things by hearing it said ‘Yes, but she ought not to have done this, because it is not suitable for a woman.’ BUT YOU WANT TO DO THE THING THAT IS GOOD WHETHER IT IS SUITABLE FOR A WOMAN OR NOT
To praise women for doing what men do habitually is to reduce them to the status of Dr Howe’s idiots whom, after 2 years of ceaseless labour he succeeded in teaching to eat with a knife & fork
Florence Nightingale
The manuscript notebook
