4 ms·
The discrimination against male nurses isn't overt, it's much more subtle: male nurses are the subject of jokes and people act as if there's something inherent
by akeefer 16y ago
The discrimination against male nurses isn't overt, it's much more subtle: male nurses are the subject of jokes and people act as if there's something inherently effeminate and un-masculine about the profession. There's a general societal attitude that "nursing is for women" that certainly discourages men from entering the profession.
- moultano 16y agoThe profession's title literally means "to suckle at the breast." If it were commonly called something like "doctor's aid" I'd bet it wouldn't be as pronounced a problem.
- hugh3 16y agoIf that were true then you could check it by looking at the male nurse prevalence among non-English speaking countries. In French, Italian and Spanish a nurse is some variation on "infermier" coming from the same root as the word for "sickness", and they don't have higher rates of male nurses. In German it's the truly awesome word "Krankenschwester" meaning something like "sickness sister". Obviously this is gender-specific and has nothing to do with my point, but I just learned it and felt the need to share. I tried a few other languages in google translate but didn't know them well enough to figure out the etymologies. If anyone knows of non-gender-loaded "nurse" words in other languages it would be interesting to hear them.