Nursing students doing gender: Implications for higher education and the nursing profession

Abstract

The average age of women nursing students in Australia is rising. With this comes the likelihood that more now begin university with family responsibilities, and with their lives structured by the roles of mother and partner. Women with more traditionally gendered ideas of these roles, such as nurturing others and selfsacrifice, are known to be attracted to nursing as a profession; once at university, however, these students can be vulnerable to gender role stress from the competing demands of study. A qualitative research design, guided by Gadamer's hermeneutic philosophy, explored the gendered behaviours and experiences of 22 women nursing students, all of whom had children and began university in a heterosexual intimate relationship. The findings reveal traditional ideas of gender were almost universal among participants, and these ideas had a significant influence on the nursing degree experience. Participants commonly prioritised family over the university and practiced maternal gatekeeping (prevention of male partner involvement in domestic work). These traditionally gendered behaviours, coupled with experiences of gender role stress, had a detrimental impact on participants' capacity to study and their personal wellbeing. The importance of these findings to the burgeoning nursing workforce shortage nursing is considered in terms of student retention and the supply of graduates into the profession. The implications to the nursing profession are also explored against the evidence that nursing students with traditional gender beliefs are less likely to develop as autonomous, critical thinking nurses compared to their gender-egalitarian peers. The introduction of gender theory via critical pedagogy in the undergraduate nursing degree curriculum is recommended to enlighten and empower women nursing students and promote the competence, agility, and sustainability of the nursing profession.

The development of an islamic nursing care model to improve patient satisfaction

“…This study also showed that age and gender were not related to the implementation of nursing care. Age in this study does not form a construct of nursing factors because the knowledge, competence and skills of nurses or the performance of nurses in providing nursing care are not only influenced by the age and gender of a nurse but by various other influencing factors such as skills, length of work, and training (Andrew et al, 2023).…”

Integration of knowledge and competencies regarding sex, gender and further diversity aspects into the curricula of health professions education in Germany – barriers and supporting factors

“…Furthermore, a study in Australia showed that nursing students with less traditional gender beliefs are more autonomous and re ect more on care interventions. Integration of gender theory is therefore considered necessary to empower female nursing students, make them aware of sociocultural gender roles and how to overcome them and thus improve their professional competence (Andrew et al, 2023). Verdonk et al (2018) developed the Nijmegen Gender Awareness Scale that was used in several countries for medical students, e.g., in Portugal (Morais et al, 2020), Sweden (Andersson et al, 2012), Switzerland (Rrustemi et al, 2020) as well as in Italy (Bert et al, 2022) and was also applied for nursing science (Aliri et al, 2022).…”

“…However, the working environment of nurses is still based on traditional gender roles with the female nurse being expected to serve. This can be a barrier for the development of critical thinking and gender aware teaching and learning in nursing education and thus sex and gender aware nursing care Although knowledge of sex and gender differences is discussed more frequently in nursing training than in medical school, this is left to chance and not systematically implemented (Andrew et al, 2023).…”

Nurses, non-nurse healthcare providers, and clients’ perspectives, encounters, and choices of nursing gender in Tanzania: a qualitative descriptive study

“…The background of nursing shows that the profession’s image has always been determined by the public perspectives, whereby these perspectives have the power to affect the users of health services, the nurses’ performance, health policy, and even the choice to become a nurse [ 9 ]. Therefore, the changing trend of gender diversity of nurses triggers public perspective about the impact of diversity in nursing care, collaboration aspects, image of the profession, retention of male nurses, and preferences of nursing gender by patients [ 10 ]. Even though some studies have been previously conducted to discover the public perspective on nursing gender [ 11 , 12 ], there are still conflicting results as some reported positive perspectives and other negative perspectives and most of the studies targeted nursing students and patients while abandoned licensed nurses and non-healthcare providers.…”