Nursing, Gender Equality, and Sustainability: Incorporating Laudato si and CST Principles

This report highlights how studying nursing equips individuals to work towards gender equality and global sustainability, incorporating teachings of Laudato si and CST principles. It discusses practical exposures and field work to better aid the problem of gender equality in healthcare.

Life on land,
Laudato si, CST
principle

Contents
INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY............................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
In today’s rapidly advancing world where both science and technology have taken
leaps beyond anyone’s imagination, the role of global sustainability has become very
important as a lot of people have been pushed into poverty and are subjected to gender based
discrimination due to rampant divide in social standing and income(Orlandi, and et.al., 2022).
This report will highlight the way nursing and its study equips an individual to work towards
contributing to solve gender inequality issues, incorporate teachings of corporate social
thought and Laudato si and also providing gateways towards working for internationally
known community organizations.
MAIN BODY
Nursing is one of the most noble professions in the world as it helps an individual to
not only serve people in their best interests but also gives them the opportunity to aid people
and better their lives which in the context of the current stressful times brought upon by the
COVID-19 pandemic has become equally hectic. My main goal behind taking up nursing as
my core subject of study is because of two major reasons, one being that I am affirm believer
in the catholic social thought and a follower of the teachings and guidelines imparted by the
pope in Laudato si, one of his major and second encyclicals in which he has vehemently
criticized the capitalistic greed of modern humans and businesses and advised people to take
collective action towards global sustainability (Flanagan, 2019).
The SDG framework consists of 17 major integrated goals whose application is on a
worldwide scale with main aim being to eradicate poverty and major social issues across the
glove by 2030 with its inception being laid down by the United Nations in 2015. Being in the
profession of nursing and getting to learn in a practical environment on a daily basis has
opened my eyes on the issues which are a part of this framework with specific mention that I
would like to give to gender equality. Studying nursing helped me understand the reason why
eliminating this barrier against sustainability a crucial step as in the healthcare sector, there is
a major divide between the preference that men get to enjoy compared to women and despite

nursing being a profession where women do the most contribution and female nurses
outweigh male nurses by a significant ratio, the major industrial decisions and all the major
choices related to critical and life altering stakes are all overseen by men.
Studying nursing also helped me witness the way in which women were treated
during the COVID-19 pandemic as poor women in my area who could not access affordable
healthcare and a proper provisional and welfare framework to take care of them succumbed
to the disease. Even in my own practical experience working as a frontline warrior during
COVID-19 made me see that nurses advices despite being sound were ignored by the male
doctors in charge and many a times they left the nurses to do all the heavy work while
relaxing in their air conditioned offices which is exactly what the SDG framework needs to
improve.
Studying and doing practical field work in the domain of nursing also helped me
better understand the themes of the Laudato si as I learned how to reduce my carbon footprint
and harmful emission resulting activities and also replace plastic with more durable materials
during my practical work which relates to the first principle of the Pope’s encyclical which is
‘response to the cry of the earth’ which states that we would do everything to protect our
‘common home’ which is the Earth and keep the environment and its corresponding ecology.
While studying nursing I also got to do a lot of social work and volunteering for the less
fortunate people who were gripped by the pandemic due to their poverty and such works
included administering free basic aid, performing health check-ups and making sure the
families do not get torn by the pandemic and I also got to distribute free food to them. This
helped me understand the teachings prescribed in Laudato si even more such as responding to
the cry of the poor and ecological economics (THE LAUDATO SI’ GOALS, 2021). Getting
such practical exposures during my time studying nursing also helped me see the pathetic
conditions women are subjected towards daily and gave me attributes of compassion and
empathy to better understand their pain and make as much personal impact I can to help
mitigate their plight.
Another major gender equality issue that I got to know firsthand while studying
nurses is that despite the female nurses dominating the industry and doing a majority of the
work, the work related opinions of the nurses are frequently disregarded as being trivial and
being labelled as under experienced when in many cases, nurses have more practical
experience of administering aid then many of the men that boss them around. There is also a

major pay gap in the industry which is so bad that it has even been officially raised at the UN
(Gender equality and nursing leadership top the billing at ICN Congress, 2022). Studying
nursing gave me enough practical dealings with such problems to begin brainstorming for
potential solutions in the future.
Studying nursing also gave me a valuable opportunity to volunteer for one of the
major community organizations in the world which is International Women’s development
agency wherein I got to work, learn and interact with various social workers which was a
much needed exposure. I also got to observe and apply the teachings of catholic social
thought in the time of the pandemic where I worked up ways in which I can help maintain
women solidarity to overcome tough odds and make sure the dignity of women in healthcare
reigns supreme which currently isn’t the case (Catholic Social Thought and the Coronavirus
Crisis, 2022). The catholic social thought states that god made men and women both in his
own image and they must be treated equally and my time in studying nursing is helping me
get equipped with the needed awareness, practical exposures and field work to better aid the
problem of gender equality in healthcare.
CONCLUSION
The above assessment report went into detail regarding the various activities that are
involved in studying nursing and the way in which this field equips people to tackle societal
challenges in the most ethical and efficient way possible. The sustainable development goal
framework of gender equality was the focus of this report and it highlighted key
discriminatory factor such as low wages, bad access to healthcare and rampant poverty for
women. The report also included various principles from the Laudato si and the catholic
social thought and it was concluded that in order to work towards gender equality, the
catholic teachings and healthcare frameworks must be robust and without any room for bias.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Orlandi, E., and et.al., 2022. A short reflection on COVID-19 and gender equality in
healthcare. In Organizational Resilience and Female Entrepreneurship During Crises (pp. 65-
71). Springer, Cham.
Flanagan, P., 2019. Catholic Social Thought. Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society
of America, 74, pp.108-109.
Online referencing
Gender equality and nursing leadership top the billing at ICN Congress, 2022 [online]
available through <https://www.icn.ch/news/gender-equality-and-nursing-leadership-top-
billing-icn-congress>
THE LAUDATO SI’ GOALS, 2021 [online] available through
https://laudatosiactionplatform.org/laudato-si-goals/
Catholic Social Thought and the Coronavirus Crisis, 2022 [online] available through
https://catholicsocialthought.georgetown.edu/events/catholic-social-thought-and-the-
coronavirus-crisis