International Women’s Day: Women Leading Nursing

On International Women’s Day, held annually on March 8, people across the world celebrate the achievements of women and pledge to take action for gender equality. March is also Women's History Month, which encourages the study, commemoration and celebration of the vital role of women in history. Historically nursing was one of the few fields women could go into and to this day, nurses remain health care leaders.

According to the World Health Organization, “Women leaders in the health sector are a particularly powerful force innovating for change by helping to build strong health systems and finding solutions to improve the lives of the people they serve.”

The history of Texas Nurses Association shows how women were able to make an impact on their profession.

Nursing Advocacy and the History of TNA

Before women were even eligible to vote, nurses in Texas passed legislation that would define nursing practice and advocated for the protection of the public by prohibiting anyone who was not professionally trained from calling themselves a nurse. In 1907, a group of 19 Texas nurses met in Fort Worth to create The Graduate Nurses’ Association of the State of Texas (TNA’s precursor) to establish an organization for seeking state regulation of the practice and education of nursing. The organization helped pass a bill that created a state registration for nurses, which led to the establishment of the the Board of Nurse Examiners for the State of Texas, and was, in essence, the first nursing practice act.

During the early 1900s, some nursing organizations supported the work of the suffragist movement and aligned themselves with the larger women’s movement of the early 1900s. For nurses, this meant gaining a political voice for laws that regulated practice, education and health. Professional organizations became the medium for nurses to share common experiences and create a collective voice.    

In 1964, the Graduate Nurses’ Association was renamed the Texas Nurses Association. Over the years, TNA helped with the development of a new nurse practice act, as well as lobbied for whistle-blower protections, nursing peer review and changes to the NPA and other legislation supporting nurses and the care nurses provide to Texans.

Women leading the way goes all the way back to the start of nursing and the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale.

One Nurse’s Leadership and Influence

“Wash your hands. Wear a mask. Keep your distance.” These dictates of preventing infection have been repeated over and over to the public from the very beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. They are the same instructions that are given during flu season or whenever there is an infectious disease identified. The general population needs to be reminded over and over, but these are edicts nurses have known since the inception of the profession, thanks to Florence Nightingale.

Nightingale, through her observations in her Notes on Nursing, What it is and What it is Not, published in 1860, identified the fundamental effects of cleanliness as a way to prevent the spread of disease and to treat those who are sick. In her conclusions she stated, “In surgical wards, one duty of every nurse certainly is prevention.” That mantra still stands, and today has been expanded to include prevention as the first course of action for disease or injury.

She first discussed the need for a clean-living environment which included pure air, pure water, efficient drainage, cleanliness and light. These are basic needs that everyone needs to maintain health.  She noted that if a person should become ill, they would need to have their bed coverings changed regularly, the room cleaned thoroughly, and the patient cleaned every day. Nightingale also stated, “Every nurse ought to be careful to wash her hands very frequently during the day.”

Health Care Pioneers

Florence Nightingale was a pioneer in infection control, however, she did not stop there. Her document also concludes with timeless wisdom about being a woman in a professional career. She urged her sisters to keep clear of the jargon from both sides, one side being a call to enter a profession simply because men do it and the other being a call to enter a profession because it is women’s work. “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…. And as a wise man has said, no one has ever done anything great or useful by listening to the voices from without.”

Alongside Nightingale, we appreciate so many other women who paved the way for the others who would come after them. Linda Richards, a protegee of Nightingale, was the first American professionally trained as a nurse and helped set up the first training programs in several cities and even developed a system for early medical records. Lystra Gretter helped standardize nursing practice in academia, wrote one of the earliest nursing textbooks and created the Florence Nightingale Pledge. Mary Eliza Mahoney, the first black professionally licensed nurse in America, who was just one of four people that completed her rigorous program.

This International Women’s Day, we share our appreciation for all the nurses, especially the women who have struggled, sacrificed and persevered to achieve their calling. Like today’s nurses who were raised up by strong women in the past, your strength and leadership today will surely raise up tomorrow’s nurses across the world.

References

Loversidge, J. M., & Zurmehly, J. (2019). Evidence-Informed Health Policy. Using EBP to Transform Policy in Nursing and Healthcare. Indianapolis, IN: Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing.

Mason, D. J., Leavitt, J. K., & Chaffee, M. W. (2012). Policy and Politics in Nursing and Health Care (6th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Saunders.

Nickitas, D. M., Middaugh, D. J., & Feeg, V. D. (2020). Policy and Politics for Nurses and Other Health Professionals. Advocacy and Action. Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning LLC.