Being and Doing – 22 June – Women’s Work

Note: The language of some posts about women are very much of their age and may be seen as victim blaming and mansplaining – even when written by women.  Please read them with care.

I WOULD earnestly ask my sisters to keep clear of both the jargons now current everywhere (for they are equally jargons), of the jargon, namely, about the rights of women, which urges women to do all that men do, including the medical and other professions, merely because men do it, and without regard to whether this is the best that women can do; and of the jargon that urges women to do nothing that men can do, merely because they are women, and should be ‘recalled to a sense of their duty as women,’ and because ‘this is women’s work, and that is men’s,’ and ‘these are the things which women should not do,’ which is all assertion and nothing more.   Surely woman should bring the best she has, whatever that is, to the work of God’s world, without attending to either of these cries.   For what are they, both of them, the one just as much as the other, but listening to the ‘what people will say,’ to opinion, to the voices from without?   And as a wise man has said, no one has ever done anything great or useful by listening to the voices from without…   Go your way straight to God’s work, in simplicity and singleness of heart.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

For it is beautiful only to do the thing we are meant for.

oooOOOooo

These quotes are from ‘Being and Doing’ A selection of helpful thoughts from various authors arranged for daily reading.

Collected by Constance M Whishaw and first published in 1908 for members of the Being and Doing Guild whose object is to do all they can for the relief of suffering and misery.

Most of the writers are 19th Century Christians from Britain and Europe who were committed to living their faith through deeds as well as words – Being AND Doing.

For many years these words have kept me company and encouraged me on the journey of faith.  I hope they will encourage others also.