Applying Feminist Ethics of Care to Nursing Practice

Through acculturation and socialization, caring involves both gendered and socially diverse patterns of understanding and behaving in the world. As a result, the implications for care are embedded in the personal and social values and experiences associated with gender, power, and politics. The general ethos of this paper will explore a feminist care ethic that emerged from the work of Carol Gilligan. This standpoint offers particular peripheral advantages as a feminist theorists’ critique of caring includes the critical examination of relationships from the position of people who have systematically been excluded from power. Although this perspective is theoretically challenging, it offer insights to the significance of caring for the other, the self and the community.