“Incarnate Selfishness”: Sympathy and Selflessness in New Girl Fiction
As women entered the public sphere, whether through nursing or other professions, many feared that she would either lose her femininity and become manly, or lose her virtue and become over-sexualized. The 1841 conduct book The English Maiden: her Moral and Domestic Duties, for example, explains that if women ventured into the public sphere, they would become “as insane in the toil of riches as man” and become “his rival instead of his ally, the guardian of his best interests, or the faithful, salutary check to the madness of his innate selfishness” (Clark 17). While these concerns were present throughout the century, social backlash against the New Woman figure added to these fears. Many mainstream presses published articles and cartoons against modern women and denigrating women who labored for money. At the same time, many "modern" girls saw nursing as a positive form of independence and financial security.
(near left) The "New" Woman (1894) in this cartoon is wearing an outfit resembling men's fashions for riding her bicycle. Both the fashion and the bicycle riding were common New Woman stereotypes of the period.
Source: "THE "NEW" WOMAN." Judy: or The London serio-comic journal, 1894, pp. 98. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.library.ohiou.edu/docview/3387063?accountid=12954. Accessed 6 Oct. 2016.
(above) This "New Woman" is mistaken for a gentleman, yet she is gratified by the mistake.
Source: "THE NEW WOMAN." The Sketch, vol. 7, no. 89, 1894, pp. 595. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.library.ohiou.edu/docview/1638110836?accountid=12954. Accessed 6 Oct. 2016.
(near right) This comic tries to capture the frustration many women felt by being limited in their behavior by their gender. The man, sympathetically, asks her, "Do you ever wish you were a man, Miss Granite?" The woman retorts with, "Do you ever wish you were?" The New Woman is portrayed as physically dominate and aggressive.
Source: "THE NEW WOMAN." Judy: or The London serio-comic journal, 1894, pp. 178. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.library.ohiou.edu/docview/3389042?accountid=12954. Accessed 6 Oct. 2016.
(far right)In this cartoon titled "The New Woman Again," one woman asks, "Doesn't Jennie look Gentlmanly now!" Jenny is the woman working at the desk. The other woman replies, As in the cartoon above, the woman speaking considers "gentlemanly" a compliment. The second woman replies, "Well, that's something, for she never looked ladylike." The term "ladylike" encompassed both sexually attractive features and proper behaviour. By being "gentlemanly," the woman is not feminine, though as this snide comment suggests, the woman was not feminine to begin with.
(Above right) Source: "THE NEW WOMAN AGAIN." Judy: or The London serio-comic journal, 1894, pp. 287. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.library.ohiou.edu/docview/3375868?accountid=12954. Accessed 6 Oct. 2016.
In order to alleviate these fears, I argue that New Woman and New Girl fiction glorify the nursing profession as a respectable, modern vocation for girls, while emphasizing the importance of sympathy and selflessnessas a way for nurses to maintain feminity in the working world. Sympathy played an important role in alleviating the social concern that professional work, especially work that was physically and emotionally demanding, possibly even involving coarse tasks and intercourse with crude individuals, would make women less feminine. If professional nurses maintained sympathy, they maintained their femininity. Additionally, selflessness was vital to alleviating the social fear that working for payment would make women ambitious and greedy, which would also damage their feminininit. This selflessness combated the fear of payment because if a woman worked solely for her patients or for her country, then she was not working merely for payment. The practical element of receiving money for the task was overshadowed by her selfless spirit and behavior. Grant Allen’s Hilda Wade (1900), as well as L. T. Meade's juvenilia A Sister of the Red Cross (1901), A Girl in Ten Thousand (1896), and Nurse Charlotte (1904) emphasize the importance of selflessness and sympathy, yet Meade qualifies this claim with the understanding that nurses need to be able to control and sometimes mask sympathy for the patient's sake.
The blending between New Women and new-style nurses is also evident in the images of nurses from the 1880-1890s.
The picture above left pictures nurses in the St. George's nurse uniform. These nurses, like the ones in the center picture, are young, thin, and physically attractive. The bicycle with these early "Queen's nurses" blends the new nurse with the New Woman, who was often depicted riding a bicycle. The picture above right is undated, and may have been printed earlier than 1880. It demonstrates, however, that people had an increasing regard for hospital nurses.
(Above left) Source: Morten, Honnor. “Uniforms for the nurses at St George's Hospital.” How to become a nurse and how to succeed. London: Scientific Press, [1892?], Wellcome Library. Record no. 32575255, http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1008708. Accessed 6 Oct. 2016.
(Above middle) Source: Examples of early Queen's Nurses. Wellcome Library. Archives and Manuscripts reference no. CMAC SA/QNI/H2/1, wellcomeimages.org. Accessed 6 Oct. 2016.
(Above right) Source: Du Maurier, George Louis Palmella Busson, and V & C. A cured patient thanking a nurse for all her kindness. Wellcome Library. Record no. 15622i, http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1164173. Accessed 6 Oct. 2016.
In the pictures below, military nurses are pictured either during the Boer War or receiving medals after the fact. Sister Dorothy in Meade's A Sister of the Red Cross (1901) served in the Boer War, and is pictured in similar fashion as the nurses shown below.
(below left) Source: Paque, Oliver. Boer War: Queen Alexandra presenting war medals to the nurses of the Imperial Yeomanry hospital. 1902. Wellcome Library. Record no. 23843i, http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1181697. Accessed 6 Oct. 2016.
(below right) Source: Spence, Percy, after H. Egersdorfer. Boer War: a full ward in the military hospital at Wynberg, South Africa, with nurses attending the wounded. c.1900. Wellcome Library. Record no. 23294i, http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1181151. Accessed 6 Oct. 2016.
![Maud, W. T. Drawing by Frank Dadd. Boer War: a nurse helping invalids to an ambulance for transfer to Maritzburg from Ladysmith. Swain [s.l.]. Wellcome Library. wellcomeimages.org. Accessed 6 Oct. 2016.](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/0f405f_af6c3e0ac7234f0b8ddbca8a2ba7da01~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_90,h_75,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_2,enc_auto/0f405f_af6c3e0ac7234f0b8ddbca8a2ba7da01~mv2.jpg)
(Above left) Source: Maud, W. T. Drawing by Frank Dadd. Boer War: a nurse helping invalids to an ambulance for transfer to Maritzburg from Ladysmith. Swain [s.l.]. Wellcome Library. Record no. 22322i, http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1180183. Accessed 6 Oct. 2016.
(Above middle) Source: The Prince of Wales addressing nurses at a meeting about the National Pension Fund for Nurses, Marlborough House. Illustrated London News. 1890. Wellcome Library. Record no. 17429i. http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1175310. Accessed 6 Oct. 2016.
(Above right) Source: Boer War: a nurse lifts the head of a wounded man lying in a hospital ward. 1900. Wellcome Library. Record no. 23499i. http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1181355. Accessed 6 Oct. 2016.