Why is it that whenever someone tells a story about a nurse, who happened to be a man (or a man, who happens to be a nurse), they always say "He's a MALE nurse" (and they always put emphasis on MALE)?
"Yeah, so I was talking to my brother-in-law the other day - he's a MALE nurse - and he was telling me about his great health insurance."
These are always in conversations where his profession is only tangentially related to the conversation, and his gender is not at all related to the conversation (and is completely obvious when you continually refer to him as HE!!).
It's almost like there are two classifications: nurses, and Malenurses (like it's one word).
The only other time I've noticed that people feel the need to put the gender in front of the profession is when they're talking about prostitutes. MALE prostitutes, as opposed to run-of-the-mill female prostitutes.
