Nursing- Strictly Female?

In the articles in "Leading the Way", I found similarities between the different authors. Each author was influenced and inspired by either a family member or close friend, whose actions helped each author bring them to where they are today. Carol Mendez talks about her grandmother's struggles and how her determination inspired and encouraged her to become a social activist. All the authors also were driven by life experiences to pursue their line of work. Mendez discusses how after seeing the disparities in health benefits, she became interested in and wanted to help the unequal public health conditions. Turner discusses how her father and mothers life experiences and upbringing greatly shaped her interests and drove her to become active in the field of public health. Kaminsky also discusses how her college education and studies of history and women's studies gave her a unique perspective on nursing and helped further her interests in nursing. All of these articles are examples of strong women whose dedication, perseverance, and life's experiences have led them to where they are today.

However, what struck me the most was in Kaminsky's article. She discusses how nursing is becoming more and more popular, even with men. She also says how nursing is typically seen as a woman's occupation. This statement immediately reminded me of the movie "Meet the Parents". In this popular comedy, Ben Stiller plays a male nurse who is visiting his girlfriends parents and intends to ask for her hand in marriage. Robert Di Nero plays the girlfriends father as the typical over protective, masculine dad. In one scene, when Stiller's girlfriends family asks him what he does and he replies that he is a nurse, the entire family bursts into laughter. They all consider it to be a funny joke and then ask him what his "real" job is, too which Stiller embarrassingly admits he is in fact a nurse. Though this is a small part of the film, it focuses on societies mental image of who a nurse should be, a woman. It also shows how even though in the film Stiller is quite successful at being a nurse, it is still embarrassing for him to tell others. Later on in the film when he is talking to his girlfriends old boyfriend, who De Niro happens to be very fond of, Stiller says he is in "health care" instead of his exact profession- nursing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rTLZujmHXY Though this film is not based around male stereotypes and professions, the addition of Stiller's character being a male nurse states something about societies perspective of nurses. Stillers profession reaffirms his underdog character and also shows typical reactions to someone who may face this issue in their daily lives. I think it reflects poorly on our society that male nurses are not more accepted, and is an obvious example that sexism is still prevalent in modern day.