For as long as humans have roamed the Earth they have been helping each other recover from illness or injury. The job of nursing someone back to health has never belonged to one group of people. Despite the ability to administer life-saving care belonging to every individual, one medical field has been incredibly skewed. That field is nursing.
Nursing has been a field dominated by women for a major period of history. From a study in 2022, it was recorded that 88 percent of nurses are female. That is not a bad thing by any means, but why is it the case that men rarely choose to pursue a field in nursing? Societal norms? Pressure on men away from the field? Stigma against men in the field?
Nursing has been a prevalent field for as long as people have needed health care. The field itself truly evolved during the industrialization period and found its way into the mainstream through the Crimean War. The Crimean War brought about some of if not the most influential and famous nurses to date, Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. Both of these women set the bar for what nurses had to be and what they had to do for the time. Both of them played huge roles in reducing the mortality rates of the Crimean War, through their care and sanitary efforts which were uncommon at the time.
Both Nightingale, and Seacole set the precedent for what a nurse should be, and along with that came the stereotype that nursing is a field for women only. For a long time, the men were the people who went out into battle, and the women were the people that cared for them. Now in modern times both of these fields are mixed. Men and women fill any field they choose to now, but why have men somewhat shunned the field of nursing. Is it some kind of stigma, a stereotype, or simply a lack of knowledge?
That “stigma” is more like a stereotype about the field as a whole. Many university studies have shown that students see nursing as primarily a female field. For example, Marquette University did a study where they found, “Nursing is still sometimes viewed by the uninformed as a field primarily for women.”
That is not the only stereotype associated with the field. Another that typically alienates men in the field is a common conception that men lack certain traits to be nurses. Nursejournal.org brings this up talking about how men are perceived to have a lack of empathy in the field. All of these stereotypes are not the end of the road; to be better informed, and know more about the field helps to crush these misconceptions.
For the most part, there is just not a huge drive for men to join the field. Former 1990s Norwin student, Nurse Anesthetist Jason Yarosik first started nursing in the early 2000s and has had many different experiences in the field, but none of them were truly bad for him. In his first job at University of North Carolina in the ICU, Yarosik was one of the six guys that were nurses there.
“Sometimes I was the only guy working but it was always a positive experience. I was always willing to help,” Yarosik said. “They never gave me a hard time.”
Typically it is not fellow nurses who don’t want men, actually, no one really minds men in the field, but specific procedures or cases can call for women only. Yarosik said that certain procedures the patients asked for specifically female nurses. These cases are no fault of the male. Typically the request is because of past trauma.
On a Norwin Knight Krier poll of the student body on whether they would mind if their nurse was male, it was recorded that 71 percent of the student body did not care and then 26 percent were completely indifferent. A majority of these patients don’t care what gender their nurse is. That brings us back to the main topic: Why aren’t more men in the nursing field?
Tradition. Traditionally nursing is a field that has been dominated by women, so even now in this day and age with the field wide open and full of great opportunities for all men choose to look the other way. Nurses often have very flexible hours allowing them to live their lives, along with good hours nursing also pays very well no matter what the nurse chooses to specialize in. Lastly, there is always a need for nurses, all over the country and the world. It’s not a matter of stigma, but rather of what guys really want to do. For many men if they are going into as medical field they want to be doctors never nurses. That’s if they even want to be in the medical field. 81 percent of Norwin students polled said they didn’t even want to go into the medical field.
Then arises the question, how do you get more men in the field? The main way that comes to mind is all the possible benefits. Nurses’ scheduling can be incredibly flexible. You can work a lot of hours one week, but if you need some more free time the next it’s all you. The flexibility of he schedule can promote a healthy work-life balance, which who wouldn’t want that?
“Nursing is hourly, which I think is better,” Yarosik said. “If I want a new truck, I work a few extra shifts a month and you don’t need to use your savings for it.”
The pay is different from most post-college jobs as well. Having hourly pay can add many benefits that you might not initially think of. Being able to work a little more or less for the money you need can be a big stress reliever. Lastly, there are so many different types of nursing, so no matter the type of person you can find your own path.
The field of nursing is always growing, and there is always a need for more nurses. There is little to no stigma against men in the field, instead, it’s only a matter of beating the stereotype.
