Nursing, feminism, classism
So I'm a recent RN still in nursing school to become a Nurse Practitioner.
We talk a LOT in nursing school about the roles of a nurse in the workplace. Obviously nurses have been denigrated, downtrodden, and downright undervalued for generations. This is recently starting to change, and I think that's amazing. There is a HUGE movement to force other health-care workers (especially physicians) to see nurses as equals. This is necessary and wonderful, and it's maybe sort of succeeding a little.
A lot of the energy behind this change picked up right around the time second-wave feminism was picking up, and while we don't talk about it in our classes (stuffy university) it seems entirely obvious that the energy behind all of this is feminist. Nurses are still a predominately female group, and our gender is part of the reason that we've been oppressed. Women's lib was what inspired a number of the most pioneering nurses in '60's in America (where the NP role was born, and for that I am very grateful!).
But. The way that most nurses that I observe are pursuing this seems horribly classist to me (okay, maybe I shouldn't be surprised, given that it came out of second-wave feminism). The emphasis on promoting nursing is almost always stated like this:
'They treat us like we're an occupation, and we're not an occupation! We're a profession! We want to be treated professionally, and paid like professionals, and respected like professionals.'
I'm all down with nurses being paid decently and respected and valued . . . but what's with this 'we have to be a profession' thing? Don't occupations and (gasp) trades deserve to be paid just as much as white-collar workers? What the hell is wrong with being in the trades, anyway? What is going on, here?
I have to admit a LOT of bias here. My dad works for the AFL-CIO, and I was raised in a family of pro-labor yellow-dog democrats (not a racial slur, a reference to actual wild yellow dingoes, I promise). I'm marrying a tradesman. My knee-jerk response to any work-place inequity is "Unionize! Stick it to the man! Compose angry pro-union folk music!" . . . but my reaction of intense distaste on this "Nursing is NOT an occupation, it's a PROFESSION!" thing can't JUST be my bias showing . . . can it?
There must be other nurses here, and based on journal articles I've read I know this isn't just an American phenomenon. Have other people (especially nurses) noticed this classism in the nursing movement? Insight? Help channeling my anger?
We talk a LOT in nursing school about the roles of a nurse in the workplace. Obviously nurses have been denigrated, downtrodden, and downright undervalued for generations. This is recently starting to change, and I think that's amazing. There is a HUGE movement to force other health-care workers (especially physicians) to see nurses as equals. This is necessary and wonderful, and it's maybe sort of succeeding a little.
A lot of the energy behind this change picked up right around the time second-wave feminism was picking up, and while we don't talk about it in our classes (stuffy university) it seems entirely obvious that the energy behind all of this is feminist. Nurses are still a predominately female group, and our gender is part of the reason that we've been oppressed. Women's lib was what inspired a number of the most pioneering nurses in '60's in America (where the NP role was born, and for that I am very grateful!).
But. The way that most nurses that I observe are pursuing this seems horribly classist to me (okay, maybe I shouldn't be surprised, given that it came out of second-wave feminism). The emphasis on promoting nursing is almost always stated like this:
'They treat us like we're an occupation, and we're not an occupation! We're a profession! We want to be treated professionally, and paid like professionals, and respected like professionals.'
I'm all down with nurses being paid decently and respected and valued . . . but what's with this 'we have to be a profession' thing? Don't occupations and (gasp) trades deserve to be paid just as much as white-collar workers? What the hell is wrong with being in the trades, anyway? What is going on, here?
I have to admit a LOT of bias here. My dad works for the AFL-CIO, and I was raised in a family of pro-labor yellow-dog democrats (not a racial slur, a reference to actual wild yellow dingoes, I promise). I'm marrying a tradesman. My knee-jerk response to any work-place inequity is "Unionize! Stick it to the man! Compose angry pro-union folk music!" . . . but my reaction of intense distaste on this "Nursing is NOT an occupation, it's a PROFESSION!" thing can't JUST be my bias showing . . . can it?
There must be other nurses here, and based on journal articles I've read I know this isn't just an American phenomenon. Have other people (especially nurses) noticed this classism in the nursing movement? Insight? Help channeling my anger?