Masculinity and Femininity in Nursing

Abstract

The concept of the "ideal nurse" was rated by 186 undergraduate and graduate nursing students on the 24-item Personal Attributes Questionnaire. PAQ contains independent subscales that measure masculinity and femininity as well as a bipolar subscale in which masculinity and femininity represent opposite endpoints on a single continuum. The ideal nurse was rated as being highly masculine, highly feminine, and midway between masculine and feminine endpoints on the bipolar subscale. Compared to undergraduate females, graduate and male nursing students rated the ideal nurse as being more masculine. Implications of these findings in the field of nursing are discussed.