The characterisation of nursing and nurses as female and feminine is well documented (Bradley 1993, Evans 1997, Meadus 2000, Miers 2000, Evans 2004, Abrahamsen 2004, Loughery 2008) and nursing is seen by many to be, as Walters et al (1998) put it ‘the epitome of womanhood’ (p 232). Men who are nurses therefore find themselves at odds in relation to one central part of the commonly held view of what a nurse is. Unsurprisingly therefore the female and feminine connotations of nursing were a theme that all of the participants in this study had opinion and views on. Accommodating these connotations would appear to be an important part of how they negotiate their gender identity.
None of the participants take issue with the fact that nursing is characterised as female and in most cases they consider it something which they have to live with even though they may not be entirely happy about it:
Liam: I think that is just a historic thing just like the majority of nurses were always female or they are always seen as like the doctors hand maiden in some ways you know.
Niall: I don't like it…. I think if people got rid of this whole idea that it was just a female job that. But you can't do that because of the fact that there is so many women in it now
An innate sense of being comfortable in working in such a female dominated area is however not apparent. The idea of “getting used” to the female image of nursing and it being dominated by women was commented on by 7 of the participants in terms of
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something that gets easier with time. Again age and length of time as a nurse would appear to allow for a reflexive accommodation of the feminine connotations of the profession despite struggling with this at first:
Eoin: But it was only when I actually went in and I saw the ratio of males to females in the college in the seminar room it was like, oh my God!
John: No I don't really feel awkward about it anymore. Maybe I probably did feel a bit awkward at the start you know. There might have been a bit of
embarrassment around being a male nurse. You know just the fact that because it is such a female dominated job
Kieran: ..I was twenty two when I started my nurse training like so and I hadn't really thought about it at school. Maybe if I had of thought, maybe if I had been applying for nursing straight from leaving cert I would have got a harder time in things like those kind of , things that we were talking about there would have bothered me more because you are at that kind of an age and you know.
In portraying themselves as nurses the men are keen to stress the professional aspects of their role. Thus again there is an attempt to create distance with the feminine coded caring aspects of nursing and emphasise the hegemonic male professional aspects:
Fionn: I would imagine that it was one of the reasons apart from the fact that a lot of nursing was along the nursing sisters and Florence Nightingale and the role model itself was one of female service….but modern nursing is far more
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technical and far more of an industry and far more producing of a product and giving value for money in the sense of where you get people to the stage of independence where they can live their lives to the full.
Kieran: I know a bit about the history in nursing, you know obviously that is the history and I respect that but I think I would very much consider myself a professional you know. Maybe nurses didn't in the past. I don't know, maybe they did. ….I certainly wouldn't consider myself you know some sort of a slave to any other member of the team
Striving to be considered fully-fledged professionals is something that nursing as a whole has been engaged in for some time (Wuest 1994, Yam 2004) and the men appear to embrace this but perhaps for the added reason of homogenising nurses and normalising their position as men.
There remain however some practical concerns. 12 of the participants recited their frustration at times with the social aspect of being often the only man in the work environment. Here feelings of isolation or not fitting in are common with coffee breaks being the most often quoted problem area. There is a sense also of the men keeping these feeling in check in recognition of their minority status but under the surface there appears to bubble a discontent with their lot in this regard:
Cathal: And that you have to listen to the cackle, the chat about the night out and you just have to listen to it. I don't take my break with the girls in the room
anymore because it is just cackle, cackle, cackle. I just go to my car and have a sandwich and a cup of tea and I come back and I am ready for it again. It is all
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about knitting, you know what I mean, the same old, same old, they are bitching about somebody in work which we would never have done, giving out about people you work with, that is their business. Maybe I shouldn't go to the car, I am just thinking because they are probably talking about me now when I am going!
Michael: Well there was always that whole thing, you would go on break you would be finishing up and the way people invariably they start talking about their relationships…I was always kind of sitting there kind of silent in these
conversations because I was single and a bit kind of almost embarrassed about being single or whatever. In this female dominated environment everyone else would be talking about kind of like really personal type stuff. I would be sitting there like numb or mute … I don't know it was kind of a distance kind of thing you know. It was kind of a weird sort of a situation to deal with you know.
Thus in terms of the actual work of nursing accommodations are arrived at which allow for being a man in the women’s world of nursing. When it comes to the social side of work the men were far less comfortable. This could be interpreted as a statement of ‘thus far and no further’ on behalf of these men. They accommodate some aspects of what they see as feminine for the sake of their profession but draw a line under becoming too much like women. A number of participants voiced a need, now and again, for the company of men:
Oisin: I used to meet up with the lads and I would say "it’s good to meet for a few manly pints" you know. You know I used to say, be saying “Jesus I think I am going to turn into a woman". You know a woman, because of the fact that you
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are hanging around with women so much and going off and having a few pints with the lads is different like again and you change like, yea. You probably fall into the role.
It is clear therefore that being a nurse gives rise to consideration about gender identity and masculinity for these men. Popular culture portrays the male nurse as a man who is in touch with his feminine side and one who is comfortable with women. However, the finding here reveal a conditional nature to taking on what is considered to be female and a desire to express traditional masculinity when possible. This points to an altogether more fluid and complex gender identity process and indeed is resonant with performativity in negotiating nursing and masculinity (Butler 1990). The ‘manly pints’ nights are shaped by an altogether different discursive framework than the day job. This points again to the fluidity and reflexive nature of contemporary life.