As I sit back and reflect on my 23 years of health care employment I mediate on those things that have inspired and discouraged me in these endeavors. In my various roles and responsibilities I would sometimes find myself at odds with "the establishment" and for the most part understood the conflict I encountered.
But then I entered nursing and discovered that this profession had it's own version of the "good old boy" network that a CRNA friend of mine described as the "evil estrogen empire". Granted this is not a flattering term but was a catchy phrase to describe a certain clique in nursing that seemed to resist the idea of men practicing nursing.
I have read countless threads on the various flavors of this subject and can see that there exists substantial difference of opinion on the etiology or even the existence of this phenomenon.
The real question is this, if you accept the premise that men in nursing are subjected to various negative stereotypes, gender bias and other forms of discrimination what is the best approach to redress these grievances.
Should men just ignore the problem and hope that things will get better or should they become more proactive on this issue and attempt to educate others on the consequences of such behavior?
