Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) – what does history say about her feminism?

Abstract

Is Florence Nightingale becoming unfashionable? The UK’s largest union UNISON voted to drop the use of Nightingale’s image for their union as she was considered to be unrepresentative of modern nursing. One of those backing the motion is on record as saying, ‘All over Eastern Europe, statues of Lenin are being taken off their pedestals, dismantled and pulled off to be cut up.… It is in the same vein that we must enter the new Millennium, start to exorcise the myth of Florence Nightingale’. This paper will discuss modern attitudes to Nightingale in terms of her feminism (not a term she used of herself) and survey scholarly articles that address Nightingale in relation to the position of women. It ends with reflections on the iconography of notable women.