Jessica Wheeler Klotz English 1302 29 November 2015 “Nurses Should Be All Men Not Women” Almost all people refer to nurses that are men as “male nurses”. But why is that so? We don’t specify “male judge” or “male lawyer”, so why so we do it with nurses? It’s because nursing is one of the most female-dominated occupations and is associated with being a “women’s job” so we feel the need to specify when we have a male nurse. History, media, economic factors and social aspects all play a role into the stereotype that all nurses should be women, not men. However, men are just as capable of having the intelligence, patience, and compassion that is required in a being good nurse. A look back through history reveals that men played a dominant …show more content…
A look back through history clearly shows: that men are just as capable of being nurses as women. Men and women as nurses should have advanced after Nightingale’s era; unfortunately we ignored the past commitment men had to the career and subdued to an unreasonable stereotype that men didn’t posses the same “inherent” characteristics needed to be a nurse. A significant aspect that contributes to the way we perceive male nurses is the stereotype that doctors are typically male. The image most people have is male doctor, female nurse. Centuries ago women weren’t allowed be to doctors because they “couldn’t handle it” or “weren’t smart enough” etc. Nowadays more and more women are becoming doctors, and they are being rightfully praised for their work. One statistical study shows that “since 1970, women have grown from 9.7 percent of physicians to 32.4 percent in 2010”(Strasser, Annie). Similarly, “The new study, Men in Nursing Occupations, shows the proportion of male registered nurses has more than tripled since 1970, from 2.7 percent to 9.6 percent”(MacPhail, J. (1996). As the growth of women becoming doctors tripled, women were admired for their dedication and hard work. Yet as more men became nurses they weren’t praised, they were made fun of. But why is that? It’s because see nursing as a step down from being a doctor. It’s the “female role” which means it’s
In order to achieve success while writing the term paper, multiple scholarly pieces were used. The databases that obtained these consisted of: ProQuest, CINAHL, Medline, and Ovid. The limits that were selected were: 1) English, 2) Peer reviewed, 3) Published between 2011-2015, 4) Scholarly journals, 5) Full text. By selecting these options I was able to attain accurate and relevant journals necessary. The search terms were nursing, negative, image, and media. Multiple articles appeared but only three were chosen to describe how nurses are stereotyped in the media and negatively portrayed to the public.
Changes in the late 1800's resulted in universities admitting women, thus allowing them to explore many more educational opportunities. These factors together provided the impetus for establishment of hospitals and schools to formally train nurses, with many schools opening for the first time in the 1870s. At the same time, though the need for nurses had been established and the importance of their role within the realm of medical care recognized, there was a great deal of opposition to the proposal that nurses should be formally educated. This attitude was epitomized by a well-known article of the time published in 1908, 'The over-trained nurse' in which the author asserted that nursing was not a “profession” but merely an “honorable calling”. Consistent with this notion, public perception viewed nursing as a job that women were generally suited to perform rather than one which required special skill and was even equated with a religious “calling”. This view, influenced by early nursing's relationship with religious orders remained far into the 20th century.(Lasseter, 1999).
In one episode of “Grey’s Anatomy,” a male doctor insults a female doctor, by calling her a nurse (Rhimes). The female doctor feels offended being called a nurse and replied “Did you just called me a nurse?” As a student nurse, I believe that nursing is a respectable profession. We are not medical school rejects, dropouts or failures. We chose nursing, because we wanted to be a nurse as bad as the Medical Schools’ students want to become MDs. Unfortunately, this kind of stereotype has created a big misunderstanding of nursing in the eyes of our
During the Victorian times, men were perceived to be better to women when it came to education. Therefore, educating a woman was completely a waste of resources and what men expected from women was to be obedient, humble and generous to men (Carol, 2011). Oakley (1975) highlighted that women did work in jobs associated with supposed female skills for example cleaning. (Up until the 19th century) . Until the mid 19th century nursing was not an activity, which was thought to demand either training or skills as nightingale stated that nursing was left to those were too drunken, (who were drunkards), who had no money for apprenticeship or too dirty (Allen, 2001). Carol (2011) pointed out that respectable woman were not interested in hospital jobs because it was considered as menial jobs and nursing was described as duties of servants.
For many years, both men and women have tried to overcome gender roles in the workplace. Female nurses have traditionally been the majority and because of this, many of the expectations of the nursing profession seem to favor the feminine roles. In the 1850’s, a British woman by the name of Florence Nightingale became the ideal image of the professional nurse when she discovered sanitation issues that brought the mortality rates down from 47.9% to 2.2% for soldiers in barracks during the Crimean War. Upon returning home she discovered she had become arguably the most famous Victorian with the exception of Queen Victoria herself (BBC News, 2006 as cited in Wikipedia). Since that
This essay will focus on how historical developments of nursing impact on contemporary representations of the nursing profession. It will examine professional identity of the profession and further discusses the value of modern nursing, social, cultural and political factors that influence the professional identity of the nurse. I will also discuss the professional regulation and the role of the nurse’s midwifery Council (NMC) in the protection of the public. Finally, this essay will discuss nursing education, the media, stereotype, and their impacts on nurses as well as demonstrate my understanding as a student nurse to challenge the professional identity of nurses.
“Males make up about 5% of all RNs working in the United States today” (Poliafico). Nursing is a profession in the health care field that concentrates on the nurturing care of individuals. The United States currently lacks testosterone (the male hormone) in the nursing field. The subject is something many people have thought about at least once in their lives. Some may argue nursing is a career meant for a woman, while others may argue it is a non-gender specified career option. Either way, the world has come to accept the lack of men in nursing. The nursing profession should be for both men and women, but society puts a stereotype on the ‘average nurse’ preventing men from being accepted into this career.
This report explores the changes in gender roles since the 1980’s and their impact on the nursing profession
In Meet the Parents starring Ben Stiller plays a role as a nurse, Ben walks into the kitchen and is meets the family of his girlfriend, Pam. Pam introduces her sister’s fiancé, who is an M.D, and his father who is a Plastic Surgeon. When Ben tells them he is in nursing, they start laughing and say, “No, really what do you do?” They continue to ask him why he did not go for being a doctor instead of staying a nurse. He replies, “Nursing was just a better fit for me.” In many movies, the male nurse is made fun of simply because nursing is for women and being a Doctor is for men. Many men fight the stereotype, as being known as a gay-male-nurse. Many have believed that men should take the one extra step and become a Doctor, simply because it is manlier. Statistics have shown 9.6% of nurses are males, and that number continues to grow every year (USA Today). We could have the most outstanding, most caring, skilled, male nurses in the world, but most will not come forward, the reason being they do not want to be terrorized, since they settled at being just a nurse and nothing more. In the article one male nurse, Ryan McFarland claims, “This job is manly, simply because you must have the stomach for it; you must be able to handle moving residents from one bed to another, helping using bedpans, wrapping bandages and so much more. (USA Today). Bishop claims that this job is not just for the women who have caring hearts but as well as for the men in this
The nursing field has had much influence from female nurses. Therefore, this has made them the face of nursing. With that being said many times men are often overlooked in the field, but there are additional reasons why they are overlooked. As of August 2012, men in the nursing field made up about only seven percent of the professional workforce in the United States of America. In the early 20th century men were allowed in nursing schools, but had to pass certain criteria that women did not have to go through.
The stereotype of the male nurse is one that has existed for many years – the reasons are many. How did this stereotype start? What problems does the stereotype
Over the decades, the field of nursing has been facing difficulty with receiving acceptance as a respectable occupation. This is because there were often certain prejudices associated with the profession (which made it hard to attract good candidates). However, in the last several years, nurses have become an integral part of any health care team. To fully understand how this took place requires examining the historical trends. This will be accomplished by focusing on: self-regulatory issues and the way social perceptions impacted career decisions. Once this takes place, is when these elements will show the challenges effecting the development and practices of the discipline. (Kitson, 1996, pp. 1647 1651)
While there are a lot of responsibilities that nurses have to do most of the nurses being female or males do their work good
The roles and functions of nurses have a very fascinating history and have evolved since the 19th century. Landale (1895), in her letter to the editor of the Nursing Record and Hospital World gave us a glimpse of what a nurse should be during that period. Referring to a nurse as a woman in uniform, it gave us an idea that nursing was a female dominated vocation and not to be treated as an economical occupation for financial gain. Landale (1895) placed an emphasis on the characteristic of being a servant and being devoted to service in order to be a nurse who was worthy of the uniform.
Among twenty leading female-dominated professions, registered nurses (RN’s) are the second most occupation that employed women in 2006¬. Similar to many traditionally female professions, the percentage of male in nursing is small. In fact, male nurses only comprised eight percent of RN’s in 2008. Although much effort has been made to recruit more men into nursing, many contributing factors have driven them away from this profession. Those factors include poor nursing image, negative public perception, low economic status, and gender stereotypes. One of the most significant factors that deter men from entering the profession is stereotypes. Research shows that men might be more likely to encounter stereotypes than discrimination;