Without exception, and in most cases without prompt, the conceptualisation of male nurses as being gay was a theme which emerged from all of the interviews. For participants this conceptualisation ranged from being annoying, mildly irritating, irrelevant, to being
humorous and laughable. The initial and most common reaction from a majority (10) of the participants was that it was a tired stereotype which did not bother them, at least at not at this point of their careers. As with the female imagery it is something they have gotten used to:
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John: Didn't bother me at all to be honest with you. I would kind of laugh it off but I mean I suppose if I was sensitive to some of these comments I mean maybe it would affect you but to be honest it didn't really bother me at all. I just laughed. I am happy in the job I am in.
Kieran: You know. You do hear those kind of things but that's just nonsense really. I think you know. No I never really would have paid much heed to it you know. Liam: (T)hat's something when I first started off nursing that annoyed me. Now you
know over the years it had annoyed me. It doesn't anymore like now that I have got older and over it but you know there was that stereotype of you
The men however all recognised that the perception was there in common culture and some of the responses to this area, while portrayed as nonchalant or as not being bothered, display a certain edginess and defensiveness that suggests the contrary. This is in particular when dealing with teasing:
Rory: they (my mates) are all in the army and like… and I'd meet up with one of my mates in particular and you would go out with all the rest of the lads that were males as well. Sure you would be all out with them and " oh did you see any willies at the week-end" and " do you suck cock" and do you know because it's such a contrast between being in the army and being a nurse you know there is the variation between the two is huge….they think like their perception of what I do for a living is I go around, I look at men's willies for the rest of the day. I look at grannies saggy diddies. This is their words not mine. And I like knob and I sleep with men. That's their perception.
126 TO’C: Right.
Rory: But they don't see the homoerotic side to sharing a shower with fifteen other men. You know. They don't see that aspect of it. "Yea you soap each other up quite a lot like". “You have probably seen more of each other naked than I will see of any man naked in my whole career", "but you have a perception" and the perception in this country is "you are gay".
The positioning of male nursing as gay by other men is strongly indicative of a hegemonic order where gay men are marginalised and denigrated and the discomfort associated with this is evident. While some of the participants were simply bothered and intensely disliked the suggestion that they might be gay others were keen to stress that they were not
homophobic but did not like the assumption that was made about their sexuality because of their chosen profession:
Cathal: It is that and it's the perception of the bloke that is doing it is gay or not fucking right in the head, a bit touched, a bit softy, softy, touchy, feely. Because I am a bloke and I am the type of bloke that fucking likes getting stuck into the
football or whatever, there is nothing that way about me at all. But the perception is because you are a nurse you are gay
David: Yes you do get it the odd time where they try to say that you are gay and everything else and I am not and I am quite happy about that. And most of the lads in nursing aren't, and they sort of have this stereotypical image from films and that that all male nurses are soft and gay and that is the only reason they are
127 there, they are not proper men and that.
Fionn: There is a bit of stereotyping and there can be a tendency to classify all male nurses as gay or something like that. The female nurses almost tend to do that themselves, they tend to classify people as gay because they are male. So you can either get nurses that are making macho, you know what I mean, or you can get nurses that are blatantly look foppish and gay but it doesn’t necessarily follow that that is what they are.
It is interesting to note in the last quotation how female nurses seem to make assumptions about male nurses being gay. Perhaps the gay male nurse is more acceptable in the femininity order of nursing, a concept less explored in comparison to hegemonic masculinity. What is also notable is the fact that while not being hostile to gay men themselves the men are not altogether embracing of them either relating, again to a desire to create distance from the non-hegemonic. Connell (2005) notes in this regard that non hegemonic men can be complicit in perpetuating the hegemonic order in their lack of support for the marginalised.
In dealing with the perception the men stressed the unfairness of linking sexual orientation to a profession and were keen to make this distinction. Only one of the participants
identified himself as being gay in the course of the interviews and in this regard he too disliked this association:
Hugh: Not really, because I am gay anyway so it doesn't really bother me then if people think I am gay ... I don't think it is an issue when you are in work really because you are there to do a job and you are being paid to do a job so it
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Eoin: No but I know two or three male nurses who are great friends of mine and they are gay, but I don't look at that, that they are nurses and they are gay because they are friends, you know that way, like they are professionals.
The overriding theme portrayed however in relation to the perception of male nurse being gay would appear to be of an irritation at a persistent stereotype and an acceptance (not necessarily happily) that this would not change quickly. Indeed 3 of the participants spoke of making a joke of the stereotype and parodying or playing with it:
Rory: I used to go drinking in (city) with one of my friends and we used to go to all the gay bars. We would get a pint at five o'clock in the morning and he was married to an Irish girl and always the rule was "don't tell them we are nurses", and one night he decided to tell a fella that we were nurses. "Oh what do you do for a living lads"? "We are nurses". "Do you want to come back to my house to do drugs and have a threesome" and you kind of. Oh yea definitely. Oh Jesus Christ I was pussy on the huff as Richard Prior would say. They wanted you. "What do you do for a living"? “I’m a nurse". "Hello". That was it and it was brilliant. It was really really funny like. I am not exactly small and petite and you know "oh you are a male nurse, oh gorgeous, come with me". "No I just want to drink and look at the really pretty lesbians in the corner"
There is a certain performativity at play here in adopting a parody and playing with the stereotyping of male nurses while on the other hand, in poking fun at the gay men in the bar, there is a resonance of subordination and denigration. The association of
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homosexuality and male nurse is thus well recognised by the participants and certainly something they all have thought about or come across in the course of their nursing careers. While some of the literature in this area attaches great significance to this association in terms of its marginalisation of male nurses (Heikes 1991, Williams 1992, Villeneuve 1994, Evans 1997, Meadus 2000, Miers 2000, Harding 2007) in this study, while the issue is significant, it does not appear to impact hugely on individual men’s perception of themselves or their gender identities particularly the longer they are in the profession.