I should not ask is this man's work
or woman's work; but, rather, is it my work? But, in whatever I
attempted, I should repeatedly say to myself, Am I keeping my womanhood
strong and real, as God intended it? am I working womanly? In many
cases, much more good might be accomplished by girls and women, if,
instead of so much talk about lacking privileges, they took the places
they could fill. Sister Dora never questioned whether she ought to bind
up the wounds of her crushed workmen: she laid them on the beds of
her hospital, and calmly healed them. Caroline Herschel did not stop
to ask whether her telescope were privileged to find new stars, but
swept it across the heavens, and was the first discoverer of at least
five comets. A great obstacle in the way of advancement to girls comes
from the coarse mannerism of certain women who have worked in given
directions. Why is it that, when a woman begins to do the work a man
has been accustomed to perform, she cultivates a man's ways? It is
not the work which does it. Would that there might be less of this
unwomanliness! Because a woman is a doctor, why need she use slang
or profanity? Because she holds certain great, liberal truths in regard
to woman, why must she wear a stiff derby, swagger, and strike
attitudes? These expressions, extremes in dress, conspicuous actions,
deceive many, and turn the world bitterly against what it ought to
receive.
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