Background Hand-dexterity and hand-eye coordination are important in nursing profession.. In nursing vocational education, equal conditions for gaining experience regardless of gender difference should be established.             The aim of our study was to evaluate the effects of gender difference, and anthropometric features on hand-dexterity and hand-eye coordination evaluated by O’Connor dexterity test. Methods Our study included 100 undergraduate nursing students of  Trakya University. To evaluate hand dexterity age, sex, sociodemographic features  were recorded. Results Previous studies demonstrated that male nurses were careful, attentive and willing to take care of their patients but they felt they had to be at the backstage because the occupation is a female  predominant one. They were also careful and attentive during O’Connor finger test. The average O’Connor hand-dexterity test duration of female students was 7.44 minutes for the dominant hand. Males completed test at 8.06 minutes with dominant hand. No statistically significant difference was detected. Students with longer hand and palm lengths had better hand-dexterity. Because wrist circumference and width were more in male students than females this provided an advantage to male nursing students.  O’Connor finger-dexterity results also demonstrated that gender discrimination in nursing profession is meaningless in terms of dexterity. Conclusions Our study approaches gender discrimination in nursing with a different perspective. Our study demonstrated that male nursing students are not less successful than female students in hand-eye coordination and hand-dexterity. It is important for male nursing students to have clinical learning without having sexual discrimination in order to provide high quality patient care. Another advantage of male nurses is their strength which makes them more effective at healthcare facilities. In conclusion, reproductive health and other areas of nursing care should not be seen as the area of a particular gender. Doing so may prevent the development of professions and also lead to missing valuable opportunities to gain remarkable perspectives and insights.