Misogyny in Nursing - Page 4

I've seen the same thing, but in a different field. A cousin of mine was entering a new field (basically, she was administration, an office manager) and was telling me about how she handled different issues that had come up.

She said something that, at the time, seemed very odd to me: "I didn't befriend any of the women for a long time. I was very careful to figure out which ones could be trusted and which ones couldn't be. I still only talk to a few of them."

She held down the position for a long time too. She only recently left there for another job that was in a location she preferred. I always wondered how her misogyny-ish approach worked out for her but.........meh, she held the job down even during the recession so I guess something was going right. On the other hand, how accurate was her "figure out which ones could be trusted" radar? What happened when it was off? Guess I'll never know.

the movie wasn't superficial or not superficial, and i shouldn't have mentioned it in the first place. it was an over-the-top comedy whose core idea motivating ides was based on an idea from the book.

the queen bees book, though, was intended to be a self-help book for parents, to help their girls deal with being on the the receiving end of lateral violence from other girls. it's very common for adolescent girls to "eat their own" female classmates.

I have a pretty good idea. No your fault but you probably indirectly made her feel like the older crappier model. A yugo to your lexus. So she reacted in a way protective to her ego. Fair? Oh heck no. Common oh yeah.

This surprises me. It goes against all of my experience. Does he work in an office? I've never worked in a office in my life. But I've noticed that people who do tend to be more passive aggressive. Somehow the office environment encourages that kind of behavior.
So does nursing, I think. My old jobs had more "physical-aggressive" behavior. Every now and then a conflict would escalate to a shoving match or rarely a few punches. The boss would tell us to knock it out and cool off, and life would go on. If I got into aconflict like that as a nurse, I'd be fired in a heartbeat. On the other hand, a guy who is gossipy or dramatic on the construction site won't last long there.

I guess my point is, maybe it's just as much a socio-economic thing as it is a gender thing.

i was thinking precisely that, but then I think about the politics among academics in university departments, and among medical school students.

I think you have to be overly sensitive to interpret "I say women are catty" any way other than colloquial shorthand for "cattiness is a trend I observed among women I interact with" when posted by a female in a female dominated forum about a female dominated profession.

Projecting misogyny onto that writing style in the OP was quite the stretch... concocting that strawman led all the way to equivocation with racial prejudice. Hilarious!

Trends and observations aren't absolutes or infallible truth, but some people are insecure, overly proud, or otherwise sensitive. This thread is much ado about nothing.

I respectfully agree with your assessment....

I remember my first experience with relational aggression. I was six years old, and a group of girls were sitting in a circle on the playground. One of the girls told an off color joke, and all the girls laughed. So then I told an off color joke I had learned from my brother, and the other girls laughed....except for the first girl. She threatened to tell the teacher that I had told an off color joke, and I cried because I was afraid I was going to get in trouble.

Back then, I didn't understand what I had done to provoke her. But over the course of my life, after many similar experiences, even as an adult woman, I've put a lot of thought into this topic.

People who are so insecure that they feel threatened in some way by another person, whether it be for the attention of the opposite sex, career success, social acceptance, or what have you, will try to knock the other person down.

Some people do this physically, while others do it emotionally. While there is a tendency for males to choose physical means and females to choose emotional means because of how we are socialized from the day we are born (Sociology 101), there are exceptions. What it boils down to is that insecure people will try to knock down anyone they feel threatened by. Some are men, some are women. Some use physical means, some use emotional means.

To define an entire gender based upon the behavior of *some* members of that gender is no different from defining an entire race based upon the behavior of some members of that race.

You can call me a misogynist if you like. I prefer the term realist. I call it like I see it. Having worked in a male dominated proffesion for a decade, and changing to healthcare I can wholeheartedly say it is totally different. I never, not even once, saw male employees plot to get rid of or be mean to a new employee. I have seen that done to a few new grads on my floor. Maybe men do that, but did not include me in their conversation? Possible, but I never saw people get run off. I never saw people get the cold shoulder or silent treatment. I did see people who were not the best of friends and some gossip, but nothing as mean spirited and hateful as what I've witnessed in nursing. I do my best to stay out of it, but I always have that underlying fear that the clique could turn on me. They seem to go after the new and nervous. I think I have passed the window in which I was most likely to be a target, but who knows. Don't pee on my leg and tell me its raining. I know pee when I see it.

I just cannot stop following this thread lol...anyway, I have to say that being a man in the world of nursing I have witnessed some of these very unfortunate situations, I even tried to mediate, to no avail....I have a very good friend that is a excellent new nurse, and in her very first job she was quickly shunned and not included with the current group of females she nursed with....she told me about it early on when she had started....my advice was to simply go about her business, be polite and wait for them to warm up to her (she is very pleasant and not a "know it all" type at all)....I figured that she was new and it would take some time for everyone to adjust....wrong!!.....I gave bad advice evidently, the other nurses went to the DON and complained that she was too quiet, and had an "attitude"....this was on her third day of being on the floor....I think it sucks to be truthful and can't wrap my head around it....it was just a mean, non-supportive enviroment....I love women, believe me....I have the utmost respect for anyone who shows me the same in return....I think the reality of this whole dicussion is this, there are plenty of as****** to go around for both men and women....it sucks but it is reality......