Abstract

Abstract This paper examines the confrontations of a late nineteenth-century ‘lady superintendent’ with men and masculinity. It analyses the problematical links between femininity, feminism and ‘reformed’ nursing, in a period when the latter two were emerging from the first. A central focus is the extent to which the discourse of ‘woman's sphere’ was meaningful for such single, employed, middle-class women as the subject of this paper, Frances Gillam Holden, in the specific context of hospitals and professional health care. This paper argues that such a discourse informed her challenges to male/medical professional power and her bids for authority and recognition in her workplace. Ultimately this challenge failed, in that male/medical power was vigorously reasserted. However, such attempts suggest the gradual shifts in late nineteenth-century constructions of femininity and domesticity towards the possibility of feminism, not only in the familiar suffrage struggles, but also in such obscure locations as the Children's Hospital in Sydney

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call

Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.