Gender Barriers in Nursing profession 

Gender Barriers in Nursing profession

 Introduction

Nursing is a professional within the health sector that focus on caring for individuals, communities or the families that need particular attention to recover from different health conditions have(Huston, 2014). It’s a professional that is slightly different from other sectors because it calls for optimal dedication and sometimes working for long hours and around very messy conditions (Mannion et al. (2010). Over the years, the nursing professional has been viewed as gender discriminating. According to a study conducted in 2011, it showed that 91% of all nurses in the United States were female while only 9% were male. This shows how the nursing profession is a female dominated field. Efforts to promote gender balance in the health sector has not been an easy task and due to those efforts, the number of men joining the industry is increasing and creating a trend that is slowly picking up. This paper objective is to examine the ways in which gender has inhibited the growth of nursing as a knowledge-based profession.

Personal view

Nurses play critical roles in promoting the social well-being of patients. It’s not something that everyone out there can do. Being a nurse does not require a talent, but it’s a calling that makes the individual want to help others unconditionally. There have been numerous cases involving nurses contracting deadly diseases in their course of the work and others dying due to those complications. Also, some patients are rude and violent making it even harder to attend to them. Lastly, nursing involves handling all kind of patients even those who need their diapers changed. All these instances are demonstrations of the nursing profession complexity and its dangerous nature. Kindness, compassionate, caring, and respect are some of the personal attributes that define a good nurse. Academic qualification in nursing adds only knowledge. This means, for anyone to be a nurse, he/she needs to possess the said qualities which will make him/her perfect for the job after academic training. Its human nature, for females to tend to care and show love while males are mostly reserved to their feelings. Due to the nature of nursing, men find it difficult to be nurses because of its demanding nature and emotions affiliated. This discourages them from the profession. Also, the society has kind female nurse’s preference which makes harder for a male to work as a nurse. In most cases, patients will choose a female nurse over a male nurse. Just as the word Mother Nature is used to refer how the planet earth accommodates the living organisms, females have that motherly touch and care that makes them excellent in nursing, contrary to the majority of males who have no emotional appeals. To many people, it will be unacceptable to have a male midwife, or a male nurse cleaning up female patients. The few male nurses available are more involved in surgical operations and other diagnostic procedures that are technical.

Other views

The issue of gender barrier in nursing growth has attracted various opinions. There have been those supporting the theory that nursing should be a female dominated profession while others support the equality between the sexes in the nursing sector. The most evident element that has created this debate is the ability of males to perform the active duties of a nurse. According to Mannion et al. (2010), the core values of a nurse are flexibility, commitment and ability to work best in their fields that are emotionally affiliated. These attributes are mostly found in a female who work better among other female counterparts. Vernell DeWitty, Ph.D., MBA, RN is a director of New Careers in Nursing, described nursing as usually projected as a very soft, nurturing and very caring kind of profession, which are commonly known as female traits, these elements push away men who want to be nurses. According to (Huston, 2014), the field of nursing is diverse and should not be limited to any particular gender. Male’s nurses too can perform even better than female nurses, if they are presented with opportunities. The benefits of nursing to the society are much bigger and thus making nursing a universal profession that does not discriminate (Vuic, 2010).

Conclusion

Nursing is the greatest profession in the health sector that carries the highest manpower. There is growing demand for more nurses as the population is increasing. The new generations offer new chances for male nurses; this is because; the upcoming young generation prefers to be attended by nurses of the same gender when it comes to matters relating to their private health. Nursing is quite a different profession that requires total dedication and considerable amounts of affection. Aspiring male nurses should not evaluate themselves if they have the personal attributes a nurse should have. If an individual has that passion for nursing, gender barriers should not be a reason why male individuals should not be nurses. Also, the society needs to understand that, even though female nurses are traditionally known to be the best, there are male nurses who are equally best than they female counterparts.

References

Mannion, R., Davies, H. and Harrison, S. (2010), Changing Management Cultures and

Organisational Performance in the NHS, SDO, London.

Huston, C. J. (2014). Professional issues in nursing: Challenges & opportunities.

Vuic, K. D. (2010). Officer, nurse, woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press