Handling chauvinistic male charge nurse

[pedicurn]

I work with a recently promoted male charge nurse who I would best describe as a clever 'men lead, women follow' type.

He is a second career type with a professional background ....smart and accomplished in areas outside of nursing.... but with only a couple of years of nursing experience.

He was acceptable as a junior staff nurse but loathsome to several of us who picked up upon his poor attitude. Leaving his messy bedspaces for his female coworkers to tidy was standard behaviour. Am quite upset this guy was promoted over-and-above several more experienced others with the same smarts and degree

This guy irritates me . Constant need to 'lead' me despite me having so much more experience and the same BScNursing degree....even as a staff nurse.

He has really stepped over the line a couple of times eg 'look at me when I am talking to you' .... LOL

However he usually knows how to stay within boundaries but at the same time be subtle with his expression of his perceived importance. He alters his body language to do this eg makes sure he is standing up and I'm sitting when he is telling me something.

Or he uses a slightly dismissive tone when I voice my opinion. Or he walks away immediately after saying his piece thus cutting out participation from anyone else.

He is subtle .... but he's clever with it.

He is an evangelical type and I suspect his beliefs are responsible for his offensive 'men lead and women follow' attitude.

But of course he knows he needs to keep religion out of the workplace. Because the moment he brings religion in, we will nail him.

I need to have several effective retorts up my sleeve that allow me to both maintain my self-respect and stay out of my managers office.

Any ideas ??

[pedicurn, LPN, RN]

Male privilege in a field that is heavily dominated by women. Riiiight. With the ratio of females to males in nursing, the chances are good that a woman put him in the position that he's in. I seriously doubt that if this guy had a "me man, me bash woman over head with club" mentality, that he would be promoted by his female superior. This argument may fly in other fields, but I don't buy it in nursing.

I'm not the one that couldn't figure out an analogy...

I never said that gender bias does not exist. I never said that males are never promoted over females. But, in this case, with the limited information presented by the OP, I don't buy it.

I graciously accept your concession of defeat.

You have misquoted me .... I didn't say that. Those points were made by another poster

[Murse901, MSN, RN]

Only two years experience, no graduate education and no leadership/people skills.

Now compare that to what is required from female charge nurses.

We do actually have a leg to stand on .... perhaps even a case for discrimination.

So, your hospital has different requirements for male and female charge nurses? In that scenario, you definitely have a case for discrimination. But, somehow, I think you're skewing the facts here.

[Murse901, MSN, RN]

You have misquoted me .... I didn't say that. Those points were made by another poster

Oops! Sorry, I've gone back and corrected it. It was unintentional. Blame it on my copy-pasting.

[pedicurn, LPN, RN]

no problem

[GM2RN]

Oh my God. Are you freakin' serious? Now you're just being annoying and argumentative.

While a charge nurse does not have the designation "manager", a charge nurse is management and can be called a low-level manager. This is just semantics and nitpicking.

Maybe he doesn't have the credentials that others do. Maybe he has less experience. But, maybe he has consistently higher performance evals than the others who applied for the position. Maybe he's shown the leadership traits and qualities that make a good charge nurse. Maybe, just maybe, you're blind to those traits that he's shown because you're so caught up in the whole male vs. female thing.

I'm not sure what your point is. Obviously, sexist behavior is not professional. No one has said that it is. But, I just don't see what you've described as being sexist. Is he telling you to go into the kitchen and make him a sandwich? Are there other male nurses on the floor that he clearly shows favoritism to?

Your opinion clearly isn't going to budge on this issue. I'm not here to try to change your mind. All I can do is point out the sheer ignorance of it all. If you don't see him as a manager, if he doesn't sign your pay checks, if he doesn't fill out your annual eval, who even cares? If you didn't apply for the position and you weren't passed up from promotion, why bother obsessing about crucifying him? As long as you can go to work, give your best to your patients, and go home safely, who gives a crap?

Honestly, if a male nurse had started a thread like this and entitled it "****** female charge nurse", do you think that everyone would be cheering me on? What did you expect to come from this?

You are reading far too much into the OP's statements. Your responses are the ones coming across as annoying and argumentative. Could it be you are biased since it appears that you, too, are a male?

[HyperSaurus, RN, BSN]

DonaldJ, why are you arguing this so much? You aren't there dealing with what the OP is, so you don't have a leg to stand on here. You keep saying that the OP wouldn't have an issue if the cocky condescending charge nurse was a female. You must not read the threads here often, because there are NUMEROUS complaints about unpleasant and catty female nurses as well as female nurses that were unfairly promoted above others. You sound like you are making more of a gender issue about this than the OP. If what the OP is stating is, in fact true, that he is being treated with different standards than the female nurses, then yes, it is discrimination.

[GM2RN]

Whether or not he has good people skills is a subjective observation. To you, he may seem like Hitler. To someone else, he may seem like Gandhi. Does he meet the minimum experience requirements for the position as designated by your hospital? Is graduate education required for the position? There are other factors at play that your clouded mind doesn't seem to grasp.

See above.

Your freakin' thread title is "chauvinist male charge nurse". You ARE far too concerned about the fact that he's a male.

And no, it's not old-fashioned to call his behavior assertive. Grab a dictionary. If a woman exhibited the same behavior, I'd call her assertive as well. The word "assertive" is not gender-specific.

Yes, we are in 2010. I'm not sure why you keep bringing up the date. I'm AOx4, thank you very much.

Regarding the statement in bold...exactly so! You do not have any personal knowledge of the person in question, but the OP does, so you necessarily must defer to her observations, subjective or not. Injecting all of your speculation about this person whom you have never laid eyes on is useless and continues to come across as argumentative.

[canesdukegirl, BSN, RN]

I almost feel like we should be in a boxing ring or something! While I know that I am running the risk of the moderators admonishing me for not staying on topic, I have GOT to inject some humor here..."This is Buddy the Elf, what's your favorite color?"

I just had to do it...hope some of you are laughing...classic line from the movie Elf. It IS the holiday season, and he IS a male, so maybe not tooooo off topic?

[Murse901, MSN, RN]

DonaldJ, why are you arguing this so much? You aren't there dealing with what the OP is, so you don't have a leg to stand on here. You keep saying that the OP wouldn't have an issue if the cocky condescending charge nurse was a female. You must not read the threads here often, because there are NUMEROUS complaints about unpleasant and catty female nurses as well as female nurses that were unfairly promoted above others. You sound like you are making more of a gender issue about this than the OP. If what the OP is stating is, in fact true, that he is being treated with different standards than the female nurses, then yes, it is discrimination.

I'm replying to those that reply to me and countering each argument with an argument of my own. Why do I have to be in the OP's shoes to provide my own opinion on the issue?

As for the last sentence of your statement, I agree with this, and I said this in one of my recent posts. If the male charge nurse does not meet the same minimum requirements that the female charge nurses have to meet, then it is discrimination. OP still has not answered my questions regarding this. OP says that other nurses have grad school hours and more experience, but OP has not stated whether or not grad school hours are required for the position or if the male charge nurse does or does not meet the minimum experience requirements.

[Murse901, MSN, RN]

You are reading far too much into the OP's statements. You responses are the ones coming across as annoying and argumentative. Could it be you are biased since it appears that you, too, are a male?

I don't think so. There are others that have disagreed with the OP that are female. Again, gender has nothing to do with this particular issue. I'm not sure how I can make folks like you understand. Based on the information that the OP has given, the only person that appears to have gender issues is the OP, not the charge nurse.

The OP has yet to answer whether or not the charge nurse meets the minimum requirements for his position. The OP has yet to answer whether or not the charge nurse treats male nurses differently than female nurses. The OP has made the statement in a recent post that female charge nurses are held to different requirements for promotion, which is ludicrous. The OP makes abstract statements about perceived mistreatments, but does not provide concrete responses to inquiries.

Regarding the statement in bold...exactly so! You do not have any personal knowledge of the person in question, but the OP does, so you necessarily must defer to her observations, subjective or not. Injecting all of your speculation about this person whom you have never laid eyes on is useless and continues to come across as argumentative.

I do not need personal knowledge of the person in question. I am able to form logical opinions based on the information that's been presented. I do not have to defer to the OP's very subjective observations, especially when the OP is not able to answer any questions that probe deeper into the issue at hand.

At this point, I just have to dismiss anyone that blindly agrees with the OP without investigating the issue or that accuses me of bringing gender into the equation when gender was brought into it from post #1.

[Murse901, MSN, RN]

Could it be you are biased since it appears that you, too, are a male?

Also, this statement is about as asinine as if I were to say that you're agreeing with the OP because you're a female. Utter nonsense.

[noahsmama]

This whole thread reminds me of one of my favorite comic strips:

http://xkcd.com/386/

(I hope all of you who are duking it out are at least having FUN))

Edited to add: If you let your mouse hover over the above comic, there is additional text in the "mouseover" box.