Gender equity
Who holds power, whose knowledge counts, who leads and who benefits?
Art of Nursing brings together my work on gender equity, nursing leadership and the changes needed to make women’s knowledge, contribution and influence visible.
Dr Marion Lynch speaking about gender equity and the power of nursing at the United Nations
Dr Marion Lynch speaking about gender equity and the power of nursing at the United Nations
Watch, read and explore
Gender equity – Seeing Red
Spend an hour with me exploring how the arts can both advance gender equity and stand in its way. Drawing on artworks from Global Health 50/50’s This is Gender (In)Equality work, television shows, music and my studies of Paula Rego’s art, I examine how culture shapes whose stories are told, whose contribution is valued and who holds power.
Together, these examples open questions about the images and narratives we encounter every day: how they can reinforce stereotypes and normalise inequality, and how they can challenge assumptions, make women’s experiences visible and create space for change. The webinar invites nurses and allies to look, listen and think critically about the arts as both a help and a hindrance to gender equity.
Watch the RCN webinar ↗Zambia. Women’s Leadership and Gender-Transformative Quality Improvement, 1991–2025
Lynch, Mwanza-Banda, Puta, Jacobs and Mutono-Mwanza
Women make up almost 70% of the global health and care workforce and nearly 90% of nurses and midwives, yet hold only about a quarter of senior leadership positions: health systems, in the World Health Organization’s words, delivered by women and led by men. Appointing more women matters, but numbers alone are not transformation. Transformation asks whether women can shape priorities, hold authority and change the structures through which decisions are made.
In this case study, written with colleagues who have led Zambia’s quality movement for three decades, we examine how women’s leadership shaped the country’s quality assurance and quality improvement systems between 1991 and 2025. My question was simple: what changed because women led?
We read the eviden
Why are so many journal editors, experts in nursing and leaders of nursing male? Is there a nursing gender problem hiding in plain sight? Marion Lynch. Volume 95, article 104911.Nursing’s power problem
Global Health 50/50: This is Gender (In)Equality
What can an image reveal that a table of figures cannot? In 2023, I was commissioned by Global Health 50/50 to lead the This is Gender art competition and integrate art into the work alongside photography. I was responsible for creating the criteria for quality and equity for the artwork and convening the global panel of judges.
The work brought together images from across the world, including women and art from Afghanistan. A conversation with Afghan journalist Zahra Joya at the Gates Foundation Goalkeepers event helped shape this commitment to making Afghan women seen and heard. The resulting work brought 272 images into an online exhibition and international reports, connecting evidence with the lives behind the data.
Through this work, Maisie Broadhead’s portrait of a nurse, Take a Break, Zoë, now appears in many gender equity reports, bringing nurses into sight alongside the statistics about inequity. The image helps make the people behind the figures visible, connecting the evidence of inequality with the experience and contribution of nursing.
For Art of Nursing, this work connects creative practice with a central question of gender equity: whose experience becomes visible, and whose experience is missing? Art can open conversations about power, care and inequality that figures alone may leave unheard.
Menopause circles: confidence, connection and control
Menopause can leave women managing symptoms in silence while continuing to care for everyone else. My evaluation of Thrive Through Menopause, delivered by South Docs Service in partnership with Experience Led Care, examined how specialist advice, resilience skills and facilitated menopause circles supported primary care nurses in Birmingham and Solihull.
The evaluation found increased confidence, menopause knowledge and activation: women’s confidence in managing their own health. Participants described feeling listened to, less alone and better able to discuss symptoms, seek appropriate care and ask for workplace adjustments. Safe conversations made intimate concerns easier to raise, while peer support helped reduce stigma and restore a sense of agency. One participant’s words captured the change: “I’ve got my mojo back”.
These findings relate to the combined programme, rather than an isolated effect of the circles. Follow-up was limited, so the durability of improvements remains uncertain. The evaluation also showed why women’s wellbeing requires organisational action: workload, protected time and employer support influenced access. Supporting women through menopause means changing the conditions in which they live and work, alongside strengthening individual knowledge and confidence.
Evaluating Women’s Health Centres of Excellence across England
I am leading the evaluation of seven regional Women’s Health Centres of Excellence for Group Clinics across England, working with Experience Led Care. Each programme is developing two care pathways, beginning with menopause and extending to areas including urogynaecology, heavy menstrual bleeding and complex contraception. This sits within a wider evaluation of 16 women’s health and primary and community care programmes.
The evaluation asks what works, for whom, in which circumstances and why. It brings together routine patient and staff measures, experiences and stories, case studies and staff interviews to examine confidence, activation, wellbeing, connection and equitable access. Co-production is central: whose voices influence decisions within clinics, delivery teams and the wider programme, and how is that influence shared?
Using the Cultural Web, I am also examining how organisational stories, routines, assumptions and power structures help or hinder change. The work considers staff wellbeing alongside participants’ wellbeing and explores the conditions needed to sustain and spread effective care. Evaluation is underway; findings will inform learning, service development and commissioning as the programmes progress.
Nurses are not just a workforce – we are a force and must make ourselves visible
My Nursing Times article calls for nurses to be valued and visible, and for the profession’s own health and wellbeing to be recognised as essential to caring for others.