WHY are nurses so catty??

Why are nurses so catty? Because nurses are mostly women and women are just catty.

:chuckle NOT :stone

Female nurses are catty because they are women, and frankly, many women are catty. Male nurses expect anyone who takes a job to be physically able to perform. It's not personal. In fact, the NM is doing her job by sending the newly hired RN to get eval'd. If the new RN can't physically do the job, now is the time to find out. Again, it's not personal, it's business.

Not to get into stereotypes, but this is only an issue because most nurses are women. Women look at this problem and see an injustice to the individual. Men look at it and see an injustice to the team.

Meow.

Pete Fitzpatrick

RN, CCRN, CFRN, EMT-P

Wow, yes it IS 2005, not 1965, as this reply could have told me.

Generalizing women as mostly catty, and men more team oriented only further divides nurses. That's really something the profession doesn't need.

THANK YOU!!!

After starting a new job a couple months ago, I found one set of my (peers) especially frustrating. Catty? More like, if I don't stop this, I will be set up to be the scapegoat if and when anything bad happens. Sorry, not this chick. 50 years old is too old for these games. There are a lot of jobs out there, if management refuses to help when your new, you may as well walk sooner than later. In my case I went to management with my observations, I figure if someone is crass enough to label me because of a preexisting problem which happened before I came, they should be up to answering for their words and actions. Before you open your mouth toward me, you had be prepared to answer for those words in front of your supervisor. I don't stir up trouble, although I am guilty of it in my earlier years. I certianly don't need it. Don't play games with me just because I am in a vunerable position of being new and don't know all the ropes yet. I personally feel if you treat a person with respect, you will get that respect back. In my case management has come to my side with suggestions and help and will not allow their new to be eaten alive. They have seen trouble before and wish to keep their nurses young and old somewhat satisfied. My advise is, if they can dish it out, they certianly can be served the same dish in return. So don't let a bully verbally abuse you into a cornor. I realize this is a business and that us as employees are basically commodities, and you can't be complaining all the time. The squeaky wheel sometimes gets changed, not just noticed. So be careful and look for answers, just dont let someone else take their troubles out on you.

So here's the deal.

-95% of nurses are women.

-Men and women are different

-Men and women relate in different ways

-Any profession so completely dominated by on sex, will develop a culture that relects the dominant gender.

Look, not all women are catty. (I believe the post read: "many") Men work in teams differently than women - not neccessarily better, just different. A male-dominated culture wouldhave looked upon this situation differently. The handling might have been different. My working life has spanned male and female-dominated professions. If you'd put up this question on an EMS board, you would have gotten a much different set of replies.

I'm curious what the outcome of this was. Did the nurse lose her job? Was she cleared to return to work? Are there any limitations on her?

Pete Fitzpatrick

RN, CCRN, CFRN, EMT-P

If you'd put up this question on an EMS board, you would have gotten a much different set of replies.

Pete Fitzpatrick

RN, CCRN, CFRN, EMT-P

Probably. Because men don't buy into the stereotype that they are catty.

But ya are.

first and foremost, i despise stereotypes of any type.

to take a few bad seeds and have them misrepresent the image of any given profession is just unfounded and unfair.

why is it so damned difficult for people to look at others as the individuals they are. no matter where you go in life, there are those that are trouble makers, catty, back-stabbing, yada, yada, yada.

what WOULD help the image of nsg is to NOT stereotype of nurses/women being catty; that nurses eat their own/ the young. if and when that happens, you can bet your bottom dollar that they're like that when they're not nsg.....so rise above it. do not get involved in the rumor mills, the gossip-do your job- treat others as you would want to be treated. but do not let a few bad apples blur your vision of nsg. afterall, we're there for the patients. if you feel you've been victimized, then confront the perpetrator. if it happens again, take it to your supervisor,but ALWAYS remain professional and never sink to their level.

again, no matter where you work, there will always be 'those' type of people. but it's very short-sighted to stereotype an entire profession or gender because of a few jerks.

i don't know why but it seems that people thrive on focusing on the negative rather than appreciating the positive. God i hate stereotypes. :stone

leslie

first and foremost, i despise stereotypes of any type.

to take a few bad seeds and have them misrepresent the image of any given profession is just unfounded and unfair.

why is it so damned difficult for people to look at others as the individuals they are. no matter where you go in life, there are those that are trouble makers, catty, back-stabbing, yada, yada, yada.

what WOULD help the image of nsg is to NOT stereotype of nurses/women being catty; that nurses eat their own/ the young. if and when that happens, you can bet your bottom dollar that they're like that when they're not nsg.....so rise above it. do not get involved in the rumor mills, the gossip-do your job- treat others as you would want to be treated. but do not let a few bad apples blur your vision of nsg. afterall, we're there for the patients. if you feel you've been victimized, then confront the perpetrator. if it happens again, take it to your supervisor,but ALWAYS remain professional and never sink to their level.

again, no matter where you work, there will always be 'those' type of people. but it's very short-sighted to stereotype an entire profession or gender because of a few jerks.

i don't know why but it seems that people thrive on focusing on the negative rather than appreciating the positive. God i hate stereotypes. :stone

leslie

Very well said. :yelclap:

Probably. Because men don't buy into the stereotype that they are catty.

But ya are.

You are sooo right Tweety.

I worked fire/rescue before I became a nurse. Usually the only woman at the station. The men were just as bad with the gossiping and trash talking about the other shifts, their last station(we rotated between two stations each week,) etc.

There were crews that were notorious for the stories they would come up and other crews did not degrade themselves by participating in the behavior.

Gender has nothing to do with it. It is all about insecurity and petty jealousy.

Not to excuse their behaviour - they sound just a wee bit insensitive on that ward...!

But it could be happening because the nurses on that unit have been "burned" by some other nurse in the past, who wasn't able to carry her fair share of the load, etc.... I know when we've had a few new hires with various problems that did not get picked up on before the end of their probationary period - big headache then, believe me, no matter what the problem is! So we try to let the manager know about any issues with new staff members, just to keep the lines of communication open.

To me, it sounds like the "catty-ness" was on the part of the manager who took the nurses complaints straight to her face! imo, it's the managers job to look at the bigger picture and not take one or two shifts as indicators of what an employee will be like forever.... it could have been handled differently by the manager. Also, if the manager didn't reward the other nurses tattle-take behaviour with results, the behavior might not be so prominent.... why isn't the MANAGER telling her nurses to give the new person half a chance, or ask questions rather than accuse...?

WELL said. I think the manager was completely wrong in how she jumped the gun. I mean for my mom, this is a nurse who is a 21 year VETERAN in her specialty. She took a new job to be closer to us and her grandbabies. UGH it still makes my blood boil.

Female nurses are catty because they are women, and frankly, many women are catty. Male nurses expect anyone who takes a job to be physically able to perform. It's not personal. In fact, the NM is doing her job by sending the newly hired RN to get eval'd. If the new RN can't physically do the job, now is the time to find out. Again, it's not personal, it's business.

Not to get into stereotypes, but this is only an issue because most nurses are women. Women look at this problem and see an injustice to the individual. Men look at it and see an injustice to the team.

Meow.

Pete Fitzpatrick

RN, CCRN, CFRN, EMT-P

There in lies the cruxt of the issue. who said there was an injustice? Haven't you ever gone to work worn out from the day before, maybe had a bike accident or worked out too hard? maybe just over did it and wasn't completely up to par that ONE day? I mean come on.......it just seemed OVERKILL to jump on it IMMEDIATELY.

I agree...management has the responsibility to condone or condemn these things. I worked for the past year as a CNA in an icu, hired as a weekend-option employee. The job only carried full-time benefits if I added a 6-hour shift sometime in the week, so my manager and I agreed I'd pick a time for that shift based on my school schedule, and it would change each semester. The weekday shift CNA had called out, daily for 3 months in a row. She obviously had some stuff going on, and there was some kind of HR involvement. Fine, doesn't relate to me, right? Well, since I did my week-long orientation with her on the weekday shift before moving to weekends on my own, some of the weekday-shift nurses complained to the manager that *I* wasn't showing up for work, just like the other CNA- after I'd moved to my weekend shifts.

Now, remember, I was only *scheduled* for sat/sun and a half-shift during the week, normally at odd hours, due to classes. Did she set them straight? Nope. So several nurses decided I *must* be unreliable, and treated me like I was an idiot, and also assumed I was asleep in the lounge if I didn't run and help when they paged me (which never happened; I was always in another patient room, helping another nurse).

So I totally side with the OP's mother on this one. Nurse Managers have a responsibility to set the tone on a unit, and i think this one truly did the wrong thing by encouraging and condoning that type of behaviour.

Thank you. And i'm sorry that happened to you. Seems so petty doesn't it??