EQUALITY IN THE FEMALE PROFESSIONS. NURSING, SOCIAL WORK AND FEMINISM: COMPLEMENT OR CONTRADICTION? AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE.
Contributors: University Of Hawaii.
Published: 1990
Number of pages: 237
Subjects: American Studies.; Social Work.; Health Sciences, Nursing.; Women's Studies.
Description: This study explores the relationship of nursing and social work to feminism. The study utilizes two models of feminism: enhanced authority and equal rights feminism as testing devices to examine the historical basis for some of the current dilemmas in nursing and social work education and practice.

The study hypothesizes that many of the present dilemmas originated from 19th century beliefs in separate spheres and the accompanying ideas that women and men have different, but complementary, attributes and roles in society. These notions about the importance of sexual and social differences between women and men continue to influence society's impression of women and their professions. Today, women are still assumed to be more moral, altruistic, nurturing and self-sacrificing than men. However, these gender-based assumptions about female temperament and motivation have not enhanced the professional status and prestige of nursing and social work.

When most women in these professions did not challenge the irrelevance of gender to their professional expertise, they found themselves in a culture that awarded them low status and pay and tended to attribute their expertise to "natural" feminine qualities rather than intellectual expertise.

Consequently, their desire to achieve professional status has served to control women in nursing and social work. By adhering to standards of professional accomplishment and expectations of performance based on masculine patterns and values, they devalue their own skills and knowledge. Their attempts to emulate a male definition of professionalism obscures the social and ideological basis of women's secondary professional status and discourages their recognition for the need for collective action among women.

Today, many professional women find themselves locked into an environment that requires them to conform to contradictory standards for femininity and professionalism.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-10, Section: A, page: 3445.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII, 1990.

School code: 0085.