Just saw a thread from a fairly distressed RN who fears losing her first nursing job. The very first response was from someone who stated "while I am not a nurse, I think ...."
It made me stop and think - I wonder what draws non-nurse, non-medical people here? And to give advice? I can't imagine being interested enough in an engineering forum, for example, to hang out on it, let alone offer advice in an area in which I have no experience or training.
Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with anyone posting on any forum. I just find it curious. Perhaps my worldview is too limited and I need to expand my Internet browsing beyond AN.com?
Well dansamy, I am a nurse and probably have been for most of your life and I see your Profile still list you as a Patient Care Tech and a Student Nurse. I would imagine you just haven't bothered to update your profile, so I will give you that, mainly because that isn't what irritates me the most. What is are those who presume that ONLY FEMALES WORK IN NURSING, hence your quote, if a nurse is seeking a nurse's perspective, that's HER choice. I have worked long and hard in this profession and started out in the rice paddies in Viet Nam, as I said, likely before you were even born. It may seem like such a small thing to you and maybe others as well, but I am a Nurse and I'm damn proud of it, and I am a man who has faced the down obstacles in a female dominated profession. I've lived with the jokes and the put downs and put up with being used like a pack animal when males in the profession were few and far between. So please next time you make a statement such as that kindly say, "If a Nurse is seeking a Nurse’s perspective, that's their choice.” Thank you.
Switching between plural and singular is grammatically incorrect, though many of us do that because English lacks a gender neutral third person singular pronoun. But since the masculine pronoun was meant to fulfill that task (all men are created equal, etc etc), why can't the female pronoun be taken to be similarly inclusive?
hiddencatRN, BSN, RN
3,408 Posts
Switching between plural and singular is grammatically incorrect, though many of us do that because English lacks a gender neutral third person singular pronoun. But since the masculine pronoun was meant to fulfill that task (all men are created equal, etc etc), why can't the female pronoun be taken to be similarly inclusive?