Early last week we discussed the mistrust of intelligence and education in nursing. One or two nurses suggested that perhaps the frustration stemmed from some sort of "shame" of being in a caring profession where our emotional intelligence is regularly called into practice.
I thought this was a really interesting reaction to my discussion. If a nurse demands more from her field intellectually, this must be reaction formation: she or he is only exaggerating an opposition to traits he or she perceives to be embarrassing, unacceptable, or weak. This also implies that these traits- being maternal, caring, selfless, tender, loving- are inherently female.
Nursing has a complicated history with sexism and feminist issues. In a time where there is an increased presence (or acknowledgement) of males and transgendered individuals in nursing, how will the assigning of these traits affect their job performance and satisfaction? Does the misogyny that still lingers in nursing affect men and the LGBTQ community differently? How will the interaction between nursing and feminism change in the future?
What have been your experiences with gender norms and sexism in your nursing career?
exp626, I know what you mean about the whole Mother's day thing. It is split into two worlds. An idealized, saintly state of being called "motherhood" and the real world, down and dirty world of "childcare". Guess which world mothers really live in. Nursing has some of that split perception too. Nursing isn't really a theoretical state of being for me; I live in the world of "patient care".
calivianya: I can definitely see your frustration here. I have witnessed the awe in some nurses eyes when they hear another female doesn't have interest in having children. It's really quite shocking to hear some of the responses to people talking about all the things they want to accomplish in life and then they fail to mention children in the equation.
For some this is the equation,
Graduate College + Get Job + Get Married + Have Children = Happy Life
No exceptions.
I support your, or anyone's, pursuit to whatever makes them happy, write your own equation.
Meh. I'm secure in my manhood. Haven't seen anything yet that is bothersome or that I give any time or energy to. I am here to do a technical job, in the most empathetic and therapeutic way I can. All the rest is fluff.
Personally I could care less what gender a person identifies as. Can you do your job? Are you competent? How do you treat others? Those are far more important than which gender box you check off. It's not my business nor my place to judge or label. If you're not a jerk to me I will lend a hand when you need it and probably bring you baked goods and/or supper at some point. (Because food makes friends and friends make me happy)
Eloquently stated. Why should I care which gender you identify with? How does that affect: a) The patients, b) your coworkers, c) me? I don't march my sexuality around the workplace and am annoyed if anyone is in my face about theirs.
Eloquently stated. Why should I care which gender you identify with? How does that affect: a) The patients, b) your coworkers, c) me? I don't march my sexuality around the workplace and am annoyed if anyone is in my face about theirs.
The original question was about what people of differing gender expressions and sexual orientations have experienced. These are important stories to hear, and I mean really hear. When you are in the majority it's easy to let the struggles of others pass you by.
While I agree with you that people should be judged by the content of their practice, I have a bit of a problem with the rest of your comment. You may not think that you "march your sexual orientation around" at work but if you're a heterosexual than trust me, you do. You just don't realize it. Every time you can talk about your spouse, your family openly. Put pictures of your kids up on your locker. Answer a coworker's small talk questions without worrying what they will think of you. When you don't have to correct people's assumptions about your life and family structure. You do flaunt it, but you're in the majority so it's a lot less obvious, so much so that you don't ever have to stop and think about it. That's the definition of privilege.
Specializes in ICU, APHERESIS, IV THERAPY, ONCOLOGY, BC.
There appears to be some confusion re. terminology of caring and the perception of the public of women including the populist late 18th century culture where such terms were applied - if this is feminisim as defined historically, then little has changed. Undoubtedly, this is also a convenient classification today.
Nursing is a profession which demands intelligence, flexibility, competence accountability and EQ, emotional quotients ( among many other characteristics of our role). These are applicable today as they were during earlier periods of nursing where there was less emphasis on learning, intelligence and more on practical skills. Nursing education has also been controlled or in collaboration with medical training although this is rapidly changing,
Being caring, supportive, and knowledgeable apply to practice today. The real issues of feminism as I see it in nursing, has a lot more to do with poor management, bullying, jealousy and incompetence - all of which emerge when managers are unable to adequately manage but are placed for political agendas. . Burn out, a symptom of emotional and physical exhaustion occurs today through the negative fall out of bullying, harassment, incompetence and spiteful behaviour among nurses at all levels.
Nursing management has failed to come up with workable solutions while the phenomena continues to escalate. None of the traits of caring, compassion etc. are evident in this scenario. Feminism is a political platform but fails to address the weaknesses within this. Historically, Bra burning and marches emphasized the lack of legitimate political power of women to the political arena and brought about positive change eg. voting rights and inheritance of properties
Today, we are mired in the psychosocial muddiness of what is politically correct brought about by feminist agendas which has not cleaned up the negative behaviors seen so often within the practice of the nursing profession.In fact, this has brought about confusion, chaos and a new breed of politically minded nurses exhibiting the same destructive tendencies as their male business counterparts. This is challenging to the profession of nursing and its practitioners today in an unprecedented way and requires an in-depth look.
There is a lot here that I could post from various different perspectives that I have experienced. But I will illuminate on three specific instances/experiences. A little background on myself to help. I attended a four-year liberal arts, all women's institute for my (non-nursing) undergraduate degree. While there I changed my mind from wanting to become a physician to wanting to become a nurse-midwife because I feel that the philosophical underpinnings of nursing and midwifery better fit my ideals than the medical framework. Since this time I have worked as a nursing assistant on a medical-surgical floor. And this month I will be beginning an Accelerated BSN-MSN for nurse-midwifery program.
Unfortunately, many of my peers and professors at my undergraduate institution were NOT supportive of my choice to enter the nursing profession. I was told I am "too smart" and that it would be a waste of my talents. Nursing to many of my peers and professors was seen to be "easy" and that you only need to be "nice and caring" to be good at it. They also felt that by entering a "woman's profession" I was hurting all the work of women before me who had pushed against the glass ceiling and became physicians. It was very hurtful to hear these things from my peers, many who were applying to/are currently in medical school. They view nursing as a field full of unintelligent women. Many believed that to be a "strong woman" you had to abandon your ability to care for others. OBVIOUSLY there are wrong. And I hope when they become physicians they have some revelation and begin to respect ALL of their nurses (male, female, heterosexual, homosexual, black, white, Asian, etc, etc) and understand the value of nursing and its philosophy in our health care system. So I have felt first hand how society/the public (and unfortunately, many physicians-to-be) feel about nurses/nursing and have been said that I am a "weak" woman for going into nursing instead of medicine.
At the hospital I worked as a nursing assistant, we had one male nurse on my floor. Often when he and I would go into a room to do a procedure, PM care, etc, the patient would ask if "he" was the "doctor". When corrected, the patient (or family members) would say, "Oh I assumed because you were a man". I also had patients who said that even though a male doctor had seen them in some state of undress during their stay (for an assessment, etc) they thought it was "weird" to let a "male nurse" see them like that. When asked why, most patients said it "just felt weird, because they are a guy NURSE".
Another facet of myself that intersects with this topic is that I identify as lesbian. For the most part my coworkers have no problem with this (and I avoid any mention of it with patients, lying that I'm not "dating anyone" right now, because yes, I am always asked if I have a boyfriend, or if I have a husband, or why I'm not married yet and it's not a conversation I feel safe to have with patients, even though my heterosexual co workers could so so without issue. Though also I think it's good to not share a lot about yourself in the first place with patients since its about them and not about you). However, interestingly enough, a lot of my coworkers will ask if I have a hard time taking care of (especially PM care) male patients. When I ask them (my straight, female coworkers) if they have a hard time with female patients, they reply "well of course not". I then ask them to think again about their question to me. I've never had an argument with anyone at my work over it - it just has illuminated to them preconceived ideas they had that they hadn't realized were judgmental (and many of them feel awful for how they felt and find themselves thinking differently afterwards).
In general yes, there are still issues surrounding gender and orientation in nursing. It does stem from a historical understanding of nursing as maternal, feminine, etc and the dichotomy against the medical framework. And in general it stems from the dichotomy in our society of maleness vs. femaleness. Personally, I'd LOVE if we lived in a world where we didn't need to worry about these things - but unfortunately we do. And even if you try to be "colorblind" (for a lack of a better phrase) you are actually hindering forward movement because it is not systematically eliminating the issue in our society. I WISH that I could just relax at work (and in life) about who I am (as a lesbian) and I wish that I didn't hear such demeaning words from patients, peers, and academics describing the nursing profession.
Sorry for spelling errors, grammatical errors, etc. I'm not much of a writer to be honest. But I felt the need to reply here because there were some things said in this thread that I personally found hurtful and as one reader pointed out, the original poster was looking for people's experiences in nursing regarding this specific topic as a means of educating others about difficulties that may or may not be present to them in their lives or their workplaces. I hope my examples were helpful in some way. And thank you to everyone who has written supportive words on this thread :) You are the kind of co-worker I'd love to have!
This topic is important within the nursing community, and separating gender/ transgender from the 'helping professional' is a mistake, IMHO. However, to take a societal issue like gender identity or the LGBT community issues, or even feminism and try to address professional nursing from that perspective is diminishing our value and merely keeping nursing at the bottom of the healthcare spectrum.
I am a professional nurse and my gender / gender identity is a part of me but not necessarily a part of my profession. My patients receive the same consideration and care regardless of how they view me until they attack me personally or physically, then I can choose not to care for them. Our training and professionalism may allow us to forgive a patient or family member a myopic comment or action a time or two (or more!) but at some point a professional has to choose self preservation at the expense of our patient care and step away from a particular issue / event. It is always a learning curve.
How the societal issues affect our care and approach are important within the profession, but I wonder if these are divisive or beneficial for our profession.
My mom once gave me a "Mothers Day" gift "from all the patients I take care of, because I mother them". Her intention was sweet, but I was offended on a visceral level. I tried to explain to her that nurses are professionals who possess a body of knowledge and that sort of mindset devalues the profession, but I just couldn't make her understand. She kept meeting my arguments with "yes, but you take care of them like a mother would take care of her sick children". Yech. I tried to explain that Mother's Day comes at the same time as Nurses Week, and if she wanted to recognize me as a nurse, she could do it that way. I guess that wasn't as interesting to her. I haven't gotten another such gift from her again. If my own mother sees nurses that way, I can imagine the rest of the population has a similar opinion.
And military officers give orders as if their soldiers were their own children.
And 3 Michelin Star chefs feed their customers as if they were their own children.
And professional musicians in a symphony orchestra entertain their audiences as if they were their own children.
And lawyers practice law as if their clients were their own children.
What an absurd, offensive image that diminishes us all as professionals!
RNperdiem, RN
4,592 Posts
exp626, I know what you mean about the whole Mother's day thing. It is split into two worlds. An idealized, saintly state of being called "motherhood" and the real world, down and dirty world of "childcare". Guess which world mothers really live in. Nursing has some of that split perception too. Nursing isn't really a theoretical state of being for me; I live in the world of "patient care".