Do Male Nurses Get More Respect?

Nurses General Nursing

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In your experience, do male nurses get more respect from providers than females? I have seen examples of this, not always, but enough to make me wonder if it's widespread. How about you, what's your experience?

Specializes in Emergency, ICU.

I think they do but agree this might be more related to the alpha quality of the male spirit than gender. I personally innately trust or respect a strong, confident nurse more and I've worked with many awesome males who fit that bill as well as some females. I prefer to work with males, especially if they're gay (nurses, doctors, techs, whatever role they have). It's just the best work environment in my opinion. Testosterone and sensibility, who could ask for anything more?

Sent from my iPhone -- blame all errors on spellcheck

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"To that point, in 5 years of nursing, I have never once had a physician act rudely toward me in person, and only once or twice on the phone---which they apologized for right afterwards."

Change the 5 years to 19 and that's been my experience.

I can't remember the last time I was disrespected, just doesn't seem to happen these days.

I think location matters,as does environment. I've seen MD's disrespect people often. The most memorable was the cardiologist yelling about the hospitalist to the nurses "WOULD YOU WANT HER AS YOUR MD!? WOULD YOU!? ANSWER ME!!!" and then the poor hospitalist comes around the corner having heard it all, shiny eyed about to cry.

So yeah, I see a lot of that. One of my friends lives in San Antonio, and it's even worse there. He bows up and uses profanity at work all the time with his superiors and colleagues because of all the trash they try to pull. He has to, and it works great. He hates it, but it's the only way to keep the patients safe and keep his license is to very strongly demand and refuse certain things.

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Interesting. I came up in the 80's when DOCTORS were still revered, we had to give up our seats for the MD's at the posh hospital where I started. But in recent years, drs and their staff seem exceptionally respectful of everyone's efforts, very congenial and helpful. And of course now being confident in my role and my age (a young 50) I'm neither a target nor would I tolerate it. If anyone yelled at work inappropriately, well I've raised teens, nobody has nothing on them and I'm pretty alpha. But still, it just hasn't come to that.

To be fair, I haven't lived in fear, I have always had back up plans and stable family. Coming from that perspective I imagine makes a great difference.

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Only to people that believe that nursing is still heavily dominated by women. Which don't get me wrong, the majority is still women, but its not nearly as uncommon as it once was. Guess it's a population/age demographic.

Today, 90% of the nursing workforce are still women. Yes, it is still heavily dominated by women.

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Not where I work. And they don't make more money since we are all on the same pay scale.

Interesting that salaries/pay/wages are disclosed where you work.What an anomaly.

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Interesting. I came up in the 80's when DOCTORS were still revered, we had to give up our seats for the MD's at the posh hospital where I started. But in recent years, drs and their staff seem exceptionally respectful of everyone's efforts, very congenial and helpful. And of course now being confident in my role and my age (a young 50) I'm neither a target nor would I tolerate it. If anyone yelled at work inappropriately, well I've raised teens, nobody has nothing on them and I'm pretty alpha. But still, it just hasn't come to that.

To be fair, I haven't lived in fear, I have always had back up plans and stable family. Coming from that perspective I imagine makes a great difference.

Being alpha helps a lot. Like I said, people tend to be respectful of strength. By the numbers though, more men are alpha than women. It's just how it is. Take a strong alpha female though, and she will probably have less stories of disrespect than a weak beta male.

It really depends on the hospital, too, though. Like I was saying about my friend, his is a cess pit. OR lies about patients to get them admitted to floors that shouldn't take them, gives fresh craniotomies to floor nurses with 5 other patients, etc. It's just messed up. As you might expect, profanity and dominant alpha behavior work well for him there. It's gotten him into a very high pay-bracket and keeps him from getting dumped on way more. If he bows up and gets in someone's face and curses some...well...that's what it took.

At my hospital, he'd get fired on the spot for that behavior.

At his? It's what you do if you don't want to leave at 1pm every day and make $25/hr for it.

Sad but true. Violence is the ultimate golden standard. Luckily, his environment is not physical, but some actually are, typically not in THIS profession, though.

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Interesting that salaries/pay/wages are disclosed where you work.What an anomaly.

It is illegal to punish any employee for disclosing their pay to co-workers. Maybe they share and compare.

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It is illegal to punish any employee for disclosing their pay to co-workers. Maybe they share and compare.

This must be a new law b/c I've been reprimanded for leaving my pay stub out for another co-worker to see. What is this law?

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This must be a new law b/c I've been reprimanded for leaving my pay stub out for another co-worker to see. What is this law?

Part of my employment agreement stated that we were not to share salaries with one another.

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This must be a new law b/c I've been reprimanded for leaving my pay stub out for another co-worker to see. What is this law?

Review Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act.

National Labor Relations Act | NLRB

However, limitations do exist. Employers may limit their employees from discussing their salaries during times when they should be working, although banning conversation specifically about salaries and letting employees discuss other matters while working may be considered a violation of Section 7 rights. Employers can't bar employees from discussing their salaries on their own time. Additionally, employees may not discuss another worker's salary unless that worker shared that information with them; information gleaned from improperly accessing confidential employee records can be barred.

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Specializes in Surgical, quality,management.
Interesting that salaries/pay/wages are disclosed where you work.What an anomaly.

Where I work we are all paid the same dependent on years of service, both public and private hospitals are bound by EBAs as well. I know how much my executive director of nursing makes.

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Specializes in Med Surg, PCU, Travel.

With the small percentage of males in the field it obviously attracts a certain type of personality. I know most of the females in my class were alphas so why would one expect anything less from the males who enter the field? Obviously more alpha males would also be in the field. Men and women also think differently. Women would give report on patient x and be like "oh he is so sweet, got the cutest smile" and I'm like..ok whatever whats his vitals, diagnosis, labs etc. Men don't think like that, at least I don't.

I think a women would be more likely to hold their tongue and worry about feelings and want to talk about the situation with a group o first where as the man with just tell the provider "who the heck you think you talking to?" i don't know, we are just made differently.

But as far as respect...everyone has to earn that individually. If you give people a chance to step over you, they will do it.

As far as earnings...all the earnings reports are skewed for males in nursing because it does not include factors such as positions, which men tend to be located in, the higher paying areas of nursing such as OR and anesthesiology and also men tend to opt for more overtime and night shifts which all earn more, and also men tend to go for higher degrees, so there are lots of factors to consider. I'm yet to see a reliable nursing earning reports that provides all this information. As far as I know I earn the same as my female counterparts with the same degree. I earn more that ADN nurses because of my BSN not because I'm male.

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