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Men Don’t Want to Be Nurses. Their Wives Agree

nytimes.com

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Re: Men Don’t Want to Be Nurses. Their Wives Agree

#31

Post by inopinatus »

tptacek wrote: post #6

We should rename the profession. "Nurse" is gendered, but also poorly captures the responsibilities of the modern nursing profession. It is batshit crazy that our first line of medical care in the US is medical doctors. For 80% of what ordinary people see doctors for, Nurse Practitioners are superior to doctors: they're more available, can spend more time with patients, and can more easily escalate cases to doctors o…

The remaining XX% (I dispute your claimed 80%, it sounds fabricated) is why so-called "nurse practitioners" must not act as though they are front-line doctors. These people have too high an opinion of their medical qualifications. What you propose will increase mortality rates due to incorrect diagnosis of serious conditions. That is entirely unacceptable.

That suggestion of "Associate doctors" is a travesty that would simply further confuse a public already beset by snake oil salesmen and the false hope of "alternative".

What you are asking for - what you have listed as the positive outcomes - is properly handled by a patient advocate. These are rare today, I would see it grow as a profession.

Re: Men Don’t Want to Be Nurses. Their Wives Agree

#32

Post by flukus »

0xbear wrote: post #27
flukus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The patients, governments and private insurers are all interested in it I assume. Personally I'm more interested in increasing availability, when I need a medical certificate for a cold it's a huge pain to try and book a doctor. And then 99% of my interactions are watching them fill in paperwork and take my blood pressure, something we already rely on nurses for in hospitals. I don't know if it will get anywhere thou…

Government is interested in whatever their donors tell them to be interested in. That's why ACA is a trillion dollar giveaway to healthcare industry instead of net savings. ACA also disincentives private insurers from wanting to reduce cost. Their profit is now limited to a certain percentage of the premiums, so naturally their only real way to profit is by raising the living shit out of the premiums.

Things weren't heading that way before the ACA and they aren't heading there anywhere else in the western world.

Whatever problems you have with the ACA, it's not the cause here.

Re: Men Don’t Want to Be Nurses. Their Wives Agree

#33

Post by inopinatus »

solatic wrote: post #12
tptacek wrote: post #6

We should rename the profession. "Nurse" is gendered, but also poorly captures the responsibilities of the modern nursing profession. It is batshit crazy that our first line of medical care in the US is medical doctors. For 80% of what ordinary people see doctors for, Nurse Practitioners are superior to doctors: they're more available, can spend more time with patients, and can more easily escalate cases to doctors o…

To put it in more tech-industry terms, doctors are either Level 2 (general practitioners) or Level 3 (specialists) health support. Adding more low-cost Level 1 health support is a great way to reduce the workloads of L2 and L3 and thus both reduce costs throughout the system as well as improve outcomes for most ~customers~ patients.

Sorry to burst your bubble: this works in the tech industry because the impact of a bad judgment call at L1 is not the death of a human being.

Re: Men Don’t Want to Be Nurses. Their Wives Agree

#34

Post by inopinatus »

nailer wrote: post #29
ddingus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is because women remain looked down upon. (Unacceptable, but a disturbing reality today) A woman presenting up, masculine is seen as tough, bold, generally positive terms. A man, doing anything feminine, is presenting down. Of course, all of that is silly, rooted in cultural norms too. We have a lot of work to do before people get past this sorry state of affairs. People should do what they can and feel good doi…

I think it's because people find certain roles more attractive. Men doing physical work, women doing nurturing roles are found attractive by more of the population. I think that the women who find males nurses unattractive simply find them unattractive, rather than looking down upon their own gender. It seems a bit of a stretch and a really nasty thing to claim that these women have internalised misogyny.

It is not a stretch. Both men and women are complicit in reinforcing gender roles and perceptions.

Re: Men Don’t Want to Be Nurses. Their Wives Agree

#35

Post by throwawaycopy »

ableton wrote: post #15
throwawaycopy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being that we're hairless apes who rely on clothing, fire to break down our food, and a host of other technologies just for basic survival, I'd say our natural biology is pretty damned unimportant when it comes to such high level behavior such as preferred profession in the Western world. Your culture and your language are by far much more responsible for your desires and actions. Just look how easily mankind is sway…

I have thought about this a lot, and yet when you observe little kids, little boys want to play with trucks and cars, and little girls like playing with dolls. Nobody has to tell boys to play with cars or toy guns. They just like them. Obviously everybody's an individual. But by and large I think there are trends at such a young age it's apparent that the gender differences in occupational choices aren't just due to…

Little boys and girls also don't want to eat their vegetables or pick up their toys.

What do babies have to do with socialized adult behavior?

I'm not saying that biology has no impact on behavior, I'm saying that it barely has any impact when compared to the influence of language and culture.

Re: Men Don’t Want to Be Nurses. Their Wives Agree

#36

Post by throwawaycopy »

influx wrote: post #26
moomin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your big assumption here is that kids are ignorant of culture and pay no attention to non-explicit signals. This is demonstrably and wholly false.

"In experiments, male adolescent monkeys also prefer to play with wheeled vehicles while the females prefer dolls — and their societies say nothing on the matter." https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.livescience.com/22677-girls... This suggests there may be something deeper than expectation from culture and society.

Monkeys don't have language and culture.

This study suggests nothing about the impact of culture and society on human individuals.

Re: Men Don’t Want to Be Nurses. Their Wives Agree

#37

Post by watwut »

nailer wrote: post #29
ddingus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is because women remain looked down upon. (Unacceptable, but a disturbing reality today) A woman presenting up, masculine is seen as tough, bold, generally positive terms. A man, doing anything feminine, is presenting down. Of course, all of that is silly, rooted in cultural norms too. We have a lot of work to do before people get past this sorry state of affairs. People should do what they can and feel good doi…

I think it's because people find certain roles more attractive. Men doing physical work, women doing nurturing roles are found attractive by more of the population. I think that the women who find males nurses unattractive simply find them unattractive, rather than looking down upon their own gender. It seems a bit of a stretch and a really nasty thing to claim that these women have internalised misogyny.

Women who find males nurses unattractive simply find them unattractive and that is fine. Then there are women and men who look down on male nurses or would feel ashamed in front of friends if their husbands/familly started to work as nurses. That is different and unfair. Calling it sexism (or internalised sexism) is accurate.

There are women who believe that women are less capable in a lot of ways - and expect that from their own children. Partly it is what they internalized in childhood and partly because it can be convenient excuse.

Re: Men Don’t Want to Be Nurses. Their Wives Agree

#38

Post by throwawaycopy »

ableton wrote: post #21
moomin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your big assumption here is that kids are ignorant of culture and pay no attention to non-explicit signals. This is demonstrably and wholly false.

I think that boys just plain will prefer the cars over the doll if you give them the choice, regardless of culture. The story of David Reimer is instructive. The boy at 22 months had a botched circumcision. So the doctors just chopped off his balls and made a vagina for him. He had a horrible time becoming a "girl" and as soon as he was told he was a boy as a teen immediately reverted and lived the rest of his life a…

And what about biological males who would rather dress and act like the women in their society?

How does this anecdote prove that it was biology and not the same kind of transgendered cultural preferences?

Born an uncultured male, raised an American boy, prefers life as an American woman.

Born an uncultured male, raised an American girl, prefers life as an American man.

As far as I can tell this only shows that adult gender expressions have very little to do with biology or childhood.

Are babies born gay? You might as well be asking if babies are born doctors or poets!

Re: Men Don’t Want to Be Nurses. Their Wives Agree

#39

Post by GhostVII »

throwawaycopy wrote: post #36
influx wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In experiments, male adolescent monkeys also prefer to play with wheeled vehicles while the females prefer dolls — and their societies say nothing on the matter." https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.livescience.com/22677-girls... This suggests there may be something deeper than expectation from culture and society.

Monkeys don't have language and culture. This study suggests nothing about the impact of culture and society on human individuals.

Isn't that the point? Monkeys don't have language and culture, but males and females still prefer different types of things, giving evidence to the argument that it is not simply culture influencing children's toy preferences

Re: Men Don’t Want to Be Nurses. Their Wives Agree

#40

Post by GhostVII »

moomin wrote: post #24
puranjay wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that most managerial positions are working with systems and processes. People happen to be a part of those systems and processes. Which is why managers call their underlings "resources" - screws and bolts that can be moved around to make the system more efficient.

Whilst I have sympathy with your cynicism 1) that's not true of _good_ managers and 2) processes are the raison d'etre of HR, which is hardly a male-majority profession.

I would argue that HR is much more about dealing with people, and managers are responsible for providing systems for the people to work effectively in. Especially if you are upper management, you aren't going to be working with people most of the time, you are going to be finding ways to make them work more effectively in a systemic way.
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