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should we be aggressively encouraging men to take up nursing?
by gameswithgo 7y ago
should we be aggressively encouraging men to take up nursing?
- lostdog 7y agoWe are aggressively encouraging men to take up nursing.
- donthate 7y agoI don't think I've ever seen a "Black Men Nurse"
- CydeWeys 7y agoAnd for good reason. Nursing is physically demanding, especially seeing as how the majority of American adults are now obese. It's common for nurses to physically injure themselves trying to move a patient that they're simply not strong enough to handle. So yes, nursing needs more men, as the job shares a lot of the same physical requirements of other strength-requiring occupations such as construction.
- MattGrommes 7y agoSure, go for it. But I know a male nurse and he's never experienced anything remotely like what a lot of women I know in tech experience so it's not the equal thought you might think it is.
- asark 7y agoWhat did doctors and lawyers do starting back in the 80s? We should do whatever they did, since it seems to have worked.
- kansface 7y agoWhy are you assuming we didn't?
- denimnerd42 7y agoA heavy dose of affirmative action. At least in the law field. From what I've been told anecdotally is that women and minorities are not held to the same standard as white men. They are accepted even if they are less productive and women are allowed to work fewer hours to deal with child rearing.
- bluGill 7y agoBest is to do what symphony orchestras have done. All auditions are done behind a screen so you can be judged purely on your talent. You are not allowed to wear shoes to the audition because we don't want to judge your foot steps into the room. Just your instrument (which might be borrowed!) - and possibly your choice in music (or possibly not). Of course music is easy to do blind this way. It isn't clear how you judge technical people in a fair way in a 5 minute audition. (see plenty of previous discussions here on white board coding) Music also has high numbers of minorities going into it in the first place. The number of females who start a technical degree program is very low, and this is reflected in the graduations numbers (I understand females are more likely to drop out of the program as well, which needs to be addressed) Failing that, what lawyers have done is a possible answer.
- Tomte 7y agoI think that's true for male nurses, but at least in my country male Kindergarten teachers often have a hard time. Parents not wanting their daughter to be touched (or even helped to the toilet) by the male teacher, female colleagues making "jokes" about pedophile leanings, and so on. The divide in typically female and typically male professions is not a one-way street.
- GordonS 7y agoI know a male nurse, and he's constantly getting jibes from patients about being gay. He's not, but that's kind of beside the point; the point is that there do exist stereotypes about male nurses that need to be addressed.
- kibwen 7y agoFor what it's worth, men are certainly underrepresented in nursing in the US. From https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/04/upshot/male-nurses.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/04/upshot/male-n... : "Only 13 percent of nurses in the United States are men, but that share has grown steadily since 1960, when the number was 2 percent, according to a working paper published in October by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth."
- acdha 7y agoIf you searched for this, you would find multiple programs trying to do just that. The difference is that it doesn't make the news because there isn't a reactionary movement which sees that as an existential threat.
- ilikehurdles 7y agoIf anything, this would help my wife who is a doctor but often finds older patients assuming she is a nurse simply because she is woman. There are male nurses, and hopefully more men will join the field, as the same gender stereotype that assumes that women cannot be doctors is the one that assumes all nurses are women.
- weberc2 7y agoThere isn't a reactionary movement that sees "women in tech" as an existential threat. The "reactionaries" you're alluding to are properly known as "liberals" or "egalitarians".
- weberc2 7y agoGah, I realize that I think I was unclear. I didn’t mean “liberals and egalitarians are reactionaries”, but rather the people who are critical of tech diversity quotas are often motivated by liberal and egalitarian beliefs. Hopefully that’s clearer if not more agreeable.
- kljhsdfkhjdf 7y agoThere absolutely is and you're part of it. Most of your recent HN comments are about how "liberals" are supposedly ruining fairness in tech when all they're doing is some milquetoast affirmative action to correct the obvious power imbalance facing women. You're even complaining about false rape accusations, it's like a reactionary bingo card.
- lawnchair_larry 7y agoNobody thinks that women entering tech is an existential threat. If you think that’s the issue, it’s no wonder you can’t figure out why this is so counterproductive. In fact, you probably haven’t even realized the damage you are doing to your own cause.
- mcguire 7y agoSure. It's a very good line of work. https://www.nursingtimes.net/why-are-there-so-few-men-in-nursing/849269.article https://www.nursingtimes.net/why-are-there-so-few-men-in-nur... https://nurse.org/articles/Male-Nurses-And-The-Profession/ https://nurse.org/articles/Male-Nurses-And-The-Profession/
- protomyth 7y agoIf you want the real examples, you look at daycare workers and elementary teachers. Insurance is an issue with daycares that hire male workers. Plus, you have quite a few parents that are fine with their boys being changed by women, but not their daughters being changed by men. Thus the problems, plus the pervasive stories of child molestation and societal stigma against males in this area. The shame of it is that witnessing positive interaction between the sexes at that age would do quite a bit for the children later in life. Particularly in communities where the percentage of in-household fathers is low.
- CydeWeys 7y agoIt's definitely a problem, and it's not good that male role models are often lacking in earlier childhood education (especially when male role models may be lacking at home at well), but one key difference is that these aren't generally well-compensated positions.
- protomyth 7y agoI don't see why a position being "well-compensated" is relevant, particularly when society is worse off for the imbalance.
- CydeWeys 7y agoIt's relevant in the sense that I don't particularly care that it'd be harder for me to get these jobs, as the pay cut vs my current job of software engineer would be so significant that I would never seriously consider it. Conversely, I would care a lot if there's some job that would earn me more money that my gender hinders me in attaining (as is sometimes the case for women in tech). To the extent that society is worse off for the imbalance, part of the solution is better compensating these jobs in the first place. We're currently taking advantage of people who have a passion for doing the work by underpaying them, which disproportionately affects women.
- reitanqild 7y ago
- enriquto 7y ago> should we be aggressively encouraging men to take up nursing? yes, of course! But should we reject good nurse candidates because they are female, and give their jobs to sub-par male candidates? Not so clear.