As a doctoral student learning about respect and dignity in maternity healthcare, I set out this blog drawing on my nursing and midwifery education in India, where I witnessed and experienced objectification, sexualisation and social degradation of nursing professions and practitioners.
Rather than receiving compassionate nursing education, my classmates and I confronted sexual harassment, sexist remarks, and public ridicule. Particularly, these challenges persist when nursing students pursue practical training in hospital setting, where doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals are ostensibly meant to collaborate as a multidisciplinary team—nursing students quickly recognise embedded hierarchies that elevate medical professionals and students while diminishing others. Gender biases further reinforce a lower societal status for nurses, a status that extends well beyond the hospital walls into the broader social system.
In India, public perception of nurses is distorted by stereotypes that focus on “dirty” nature of their professional roles, gruelling night shifts, and even their uniforms, before any acknowledgement of their professional competencies. Nurses are often trivialised with comments such as, “Why not just study medicine if you had good grades?” or “Four years of study merely to learn how to give an injection?”. Such remarks are reflective of a societal hierarchy, perhaps perpetuated by the health system or vice versa. In reality, such processes co-exist and intensify each other over time.
I became increasingly curious about the socio-cultural underpinnings of these stigmatising attitudes, especially how nurses’ dignity was compromised. Much of the issues are rooted from the intimate nature of nursing care: tending to both male and female patients, including direct contact with private areas. In many orthodox Indian cultural contexts, it was deemed shameful for women to touch unknown men, so there were efforts to keep women “pure” by labelling such professional touch as prostitution. . Moreover, compensation for caregiving services was equated to transactional sex. This stigmatising logic has been reinforced over decades, circulating through communities and institutions alike, and it continues to influence how nurses’ identities are perceived and shaped. At my private teaching hospital in Odisha, it did not take long to encounter evidence of these deeply rooted biases, including the expectation that nurses primarily exist to “please” rather than to “heal”. Although nurses and midwives are academically trained to provide healthcare, reduce suffering, and advocate for patients, an inherent feeling of objectification persists, privileging appearance over expertise. As students, we were often restricted to observation rather than hands-on learning in the operating theatre or labour ward, under the rationale that “nurses only assist doctors” and thus do not require direct practice.
This medical hierarchy was made explicit through remarks from medical interns, one of whom asserted that a nurse’s primary role is to maintain her appearance—citing a television advertisement that dismissed the profession by suggesting a perfume-spraying nurse could magically awaken a comatose patient. When such incidents were reported to our instructors, they dismissed them, stating, “No matter what, nurses are always below doctors. Let it go.” Over time, many of us accepted these realities. We were even advised by senior nurses to wear lipstick regularly, apparently to “please” patients and thereby create a more pleasant atmosphere.
The depth of such objectification was starkly illustrated when a male doctor requested a female student nurse to hold a male patient’s penis during a procedure, implying that a “beautiful red-lip nurse” might facilitate an erection for easier catheter insertion. Such incidents, amplified by the fear of rumours, led many of us to avoid interactions with male peers entirely. While popular media simultaneously fetishises and mocks the “naughty nurse” image—from classic romantic novels like Gone with the Wind featuring a nurse as an object of desire to advertisements sexualising the nursing profession—how Indian nurses could participate in professional identity and challenge the medical hierarchy remains problematic.
Such hierarchies reflect a larger, systematic approach in which the Indian health system has been functioning “of the doctors, for the doctors, and by the doctors”, often sidelining other professions like nursing. This structure, with roots beyond hospitals into societal norms, has created a resilient cycle of stigmatisation and objectification. To achieve genuine multidisciplinary collaboration and improve the nursing profession, a critical re-evaluation of this culture is essential, both within healthcare institutions and across the social fabric that sustains them.
Despite these entrenched challenges, there is a growing momentum among nurses, midwives, educators, and advocacy groups working to reframe the public perception of nursing in India. Organisations such as the Indian Nursing Council (INC) and Trained Nurses Association of India (TNAI) and emerging grassroots collectives are advocating for policy reforms, fair representation in health leadership, and improved workplace protections. These movements urge both the public and policymakers to recognise nursing as a profession grounded in clinical expertise and ethical care. Some educational institutions are beginning to challenge hierarchical norms by promoting interprofessional respect and dignity in clinical training. Individual nurse researchers too are leading efforts to confront systemic stigma through political advocacy, education, and global health dialogues. Efforts are also focused on empowering the next generation of nurses by addressing discrimination early in their education, instilling a belief in their worth, and encouraging resistance against oppressive practices. As readers, educators, health professionals—or simply members of the public—we must question how we speak about, treat, and support nurses.
Author: Kripalini Patel is a PhD student at University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research explores respectful maternity care for women in India.
Competing interest: None
Handling Editor: Neha Faruqui