A nurse manager is experiencing poor staff morale on her unit. While participating in a baccalaureate course, the nurse manager had learned that one of the reasons nurses lack power today is related to the past. In the early decades of the profession, nurses lacked power because:

nurses freely chose to defer to physicians and administrators with more education.

the first nursing licensure laws prohibited nurses from making most decisions.

women lacked legal, social, and political power because of legal and cultural barriers.

nurses astutely recognized the risks of grabbing too much power too soon.