The attention of the world has been on nurses in the past two years. Because of the pandemic, they have been applauded and their work featured on national news in many countries. However, nurses were not generally seen at press briefings, nor interviewed as experts on any aspect of pandemic control or treatment. Also in 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) published the first State of the World's Nursing Report which highlighted present and future global shortages of nurses and called for nurses to be more visible leaders, present at the highest levels where health policy is made. This call was echoed in the WHO Global Strategic Directions for Nursing and Midwifery published in 2021. This article presents the challenges to nurses being accepted as leaders in the health system, showing the legacy of nursing being a gendered occupation, suggesting a gender-focused analytical framework to address the continuing challenges to women nurses becoming powerful leaders and exploring the need to disrupt the status quo in health systems leadership and nursing to achieve radical and sustainable change.
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