Features

Consider these three words: ‘Equal Employment Opportunities’. What comes to mind? Probably imagery from the feminist movement, hordes of angry, high-heel clad power-women protesting their way up the male-dominated corporate ladder in the name of gender equality. But what happens when the shoe is on the other foot and when the shoe in question is not a high-heel, but a practical sneaker – and it’s the men who have to fight for their position in the workplace? SIOBHAN DOWNES looks at two professions in which men are by far the minority.

From Male to Florence Nightingale: Nursing

She’s known as the mother of modern nursing and is an icon of femininity and womanly virtue: Florence Nightingale, the main reason why nursing is seen as a female-dominated profession. But behind Nightingale’s army of angels is the untold history of nursing – in which men feature prominently. In fact, before Florence’s time, nursing was actually dominated by men. The world’s first nursing school was opened in India, in 250 BC, and only admitted men, as women were not considered ‘pure’ enough to become nurses.
 
Fast forward to the 21st century, where, according to the Nursing Council of New Zealand’s 2010 Workforce Statistics, only 7.2% of the nursing workforce is male. Critic spoke with three first-year male nursing students from Otago Polytechnic; James, Karol and Tim, about what it was like to be a male minority in the ‘womanly world’ of nursing. They’re getting a good idea already – there are only eight male students in their entire year group.
 
What made you decide to do nursing?

James: I was diagnosed with cancer after my first year of uni, and there were a couple of nurses – including a male nurse - who looked after me. They were great, and made my stay a lot better. So after that, I had always thought about doing it, but I finished my BA first. Karol: I was a support worker previously, helping people with intellectual difficulties. I started doing that and I really liked it – you come home from work and you know you’ve made a difference personally. I’ve never really had that before with a job. Then both my parents were nurses, so they were always bugging me to do it. Tim: I come from a medical family, and I also spent a year working at a rest home as a caregiver at a hospital unit. Nursing seemed like a good, solid career.
 
How do people react when you say you’re training to be a nurse?
 
James: All my mates were really supportive about it, they said, ‘yeah, we can see you doing that.’ Most people are like, ‘good on you.’ Karol: Everyone who knows me knows I’m into that sort of thing, because I'd already been doing something similar anyway. But others get quite visibly shocked, especially other guys. Tim: People reacted fine. There was more reaction when they found out I got the job as a caregiver – they couldn't believe I was wiping bums for a living!
 
Why do you think there aren't more men in nursing?
 
James: The whole stereotype is still there – the whole gay thing. Karol: When you’re a kid, you have to dress a certain way, play with certain toys - it comes down to all that sociological stuff. It’s just been a traditional thing for women to do. I think we’re just herded into different things when we’re kids, and it just sort of happens. Tim: People still have that attitude that nursing is a ‘female job’. Even within nursing, there’s an uneven spread – psychiatric nursing is seen as for males, and general nursing, gynaecological nursing or midwifery is seen as for women only.
 
What are some positives and negatives to being a male nurse?

James: There are lots of girls around! You make lots of friends, and see different perceptions on things. You normally look at things from a ‘guy’s way of doing things’, but then you see there’s another way around it. Karol: As for negatives, sometimes women will have things they say about guys without thinking. Like, in the classroom if we’re talking about a patient being violent, it’s always a male patient, like, ‘if HE is violent’ – it just comes out automatically, which is a little bit annoying.
 
What do you think needs to be done to encourage more guys to train as nurses?

James: Maybe more education about it, and people need to ac

cept who you are. Looking after people is hardly an un-manly thing. Karol: I think the way society is going it’s going to happen anyways, things are progressively changing. I sort of feel sometimes, if I’m with a group of guys, I feel a little bit uncomfortable – like they might not understand [I’m a nurse]. I’d like that perception to change. Tim: There needs to be a change in attitudes. More male nurses would mean males and females would be more equal. This needs to happen in our society – as it is, gender roles are becoming more and more irrelevant.
 
‘Daddy Day Care’: Early Childhood Teaching
It was actually a German guy, Friedrich Frobel, who invented kindergartens back in 1840. But his concept was based around the idea that women were natural educators, and kindergarten teaching was to be a career that would use women in a job which would extend their motherly instincts. Unsurprisingly, the profession quickly became exclusive to women.
 
In New Zealand, the association of men with childcare has been a slightly touchy subject, since the 1993 Peter Ellis controversy. Ellis, a Christchurch childcare worker, was found guilty of sexual offences involving children at the centre he worked at. The accusations against Ellis created hysteria, resulting in an all-time low in male early childhood teachers. Nowadays, the situation is slowly improving – but according to the New Zealand Government’s Education Counts statistics, men still make up less than 2% of the early childhood services workforce.
 
Critic visited Early Childhood on Stafford, a Dunedin day care centre known for its visible presence of male staff, including President of the New Zealand Network for Men in Early Childhood Education (EC-MENz), Russell Ballantyne. Before we start the interview, he is engaging in some playground politics. “Gimme a hug,” demands a pigtailed 3-year-old girl, tugging on his trousers. Russell swoops her up without batting an eyelid.

“Early childhood is a great job for guys,” he tells me. “At the end of the day, the rewards are beyond monetary – it’s really exciting watching children grow.” Any concerns of Peter Ellis-type situations have now largely vanished, says Russell. “The environment for guys is very positive at the moment, as opposed to twenty years ago. Families are actually wanting guys as well as women to work with their children, so it’s a really good time to come into teaching.”
 
Then why are the numbers of male early childhood teachers still so low? Russell thinks one of the main reasons is to do with how education is being marketed as a career – a career aimed at women. “At the moment we’re successfully recruiting women, but not men. Look at the army and navy ads on TV – they’re really good at using both female and male characters. In teaching, you don't get that. You don’t get any images of men and young children. Men need to be invited into the area because it’s seen as a women’s area of expertise. So we need to take a different approach, perhaps advertise through things like Placemakers, or sports clubs.”
 
But does it matter if there are male teachers or not? “There’s a lot of debate about whether it’s an issue,” Russell explains. “The argument is that what kids want first and foremost is good teachers, and it doesn’t matter if they’re female or male.” Russell, however, thinks this attitude is a “cop out” – “I think we do need both male and female teachers. To me, it comes down to the greater issue of diversity. The greater the diverse views in a centre, the richer the learning experience. Having men in there enriches the environment.”
 
Russell makes the point that it’s not just the kids who benefit from having male staff. It also has a lot to do with our present society. “For a lot of fathers, who do they look to for role models in terms of parenting? The only images out there are negative, from child abuse cases, sports stars, movie stars and rock stars – people who are not the best role models.” Russell believes early childhood teachers can be those role models. “Men need to see other men in the role of child raising. It’s important for young boys, too – we have a number of four-year-old boys here who are really good at looking after small children. And it’s important to develop that empathy – maybe it will modify some of those urges later on to become violent and hurt people.”
 
There needs to be a shift in the popular attitude that caring for children is a woman’s job, says Russell. Men care about children, too – despite the often negative press. “But even if you read about gang leaders, and criminals… the majority of the time they say, ‘I did it for my kids’. Kids have that power; when we leave this planet, they’re our footprint. They’re a big motivator.”