Beginning in the 1960s, second-wave feminism inspired and influenced dramatic changes in the nursing profession. Susan Gelfand Malka argues that feminism helped end nursing's subordination to medicine and provided nurses with greater autonomy and professional status. She discusses two distinct eras in nursing history. The first extended from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, when feminism seemed to belittle the occupation in its analysis of gender subordination but also fueled nursing leaders' drive for greater authority and independence. The second era began in the mid-1980s, when feminism grounded in the ethics of care appealed to a much broader group of caregivers and was incorporated into nursing education. While nurses accepted aspects of feminism, they did not necessarily identify as feminists. Nonetheless, they used, passed on, and developed feminist ideas that brought about nursing school curricula changes and the increase in self-directed and specialized roles available to caregivers in the twenty-first century.

This book examines nursing's feminist consciousness as the profession has developed and evolved over time. The interrelationship between the status of nursing and the status of women in patriarchal society is analyzed. Nursing's struggle to overcome its oppression and gain increased autonomy and political power is considered from an historical perspective. Early leaders in the profession, such as Florence Nightingale, Lavinia Dock, and Lillian Wald, are analyzed with regard to their social reform, political, and feminist activities. Nursing's support for the Equal Rights Amendment and its role in the women's movement that reemerged in the 1960s is examined in light of the profession's ambivalence to feminist issues. The last 20 years show that the profession has become actively aware of important issues such as pay equity and equal job opportunity and that nursing has become more cognizant and supportive of feminist goals on a variety of issues. This work provides a comprehensive review of the history of the nursing profession while simultaneously instructing in new paradigms of thought relative to provision of healthcare and human services by women.

First Published in 1994. Part of the series on the Development of American Feminism, Sandra Lewenson's Taking Charge is the first in this series, and the selection reflects the intent to assist in enlarging our general understanding of an often overlooked presence of feminism in such professional activities as those of the Modern Nursing Movement in the United States from the Gilded Era to World War I. This work will greatly enlightened the reader regarding the struggles and accomplishments of women in nursing.

This provocative book paved the way for nursing research informed by f eminist scholarship, critical theory, and post-modern thought. Controv ersial then, relevant today.

The aim of this book is to show how feminist perspectives can extend and advance the field of nursing ethics. It engages in the broader nursing ethics project of critiquing existing ethical frameworks as well as constructing and developing alternative understandings, concepts, and methodologies. All of the contributors draw attention to the operations of power inherent in moral relationships at individual, institutional, cultural, and socio-political levels. The early essays chart the development of feminist perspectives in the field of nursing ethics from the late 19th century to the present day and consider the impact of gender roles and gendered understandings on the moral lives of nurses, patients and families. They also consider the transformative potential of feminist perspectives to widen the scope of nursing and midwifery practices to include the social, economic, cultural and political dimensions of moral decision-making in health care settings. The second half of the book draws on feminist insights to critically discuss the role of nurses and midwives in leadership, healthcare organisations, and research as well as the provision of particular forms of care e.g. care in the home and abortion care.

In the forty year period after World War II, American women's roles and perceptions changed dramatically. Between 1946 and 1986 married females became a large and stable component of the labor force. During the late 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, a growing number of these women adopted the beliefs of the re-emerging feminist movement. This study analyzes the impact of both the demographic revolution and the women's movement on postwar women workers. It also traces the rise of a conservative backlash and examines the reasons traditionalist women found feminism threatening. Nursing, a historically feminized occupation, is the prism through which postwar women are studied.