Hegemonik Erkeklik Bağlaminda Erkek Hemşireler
Male Nurses in the Context of Hegemonic Masculinity

Summary/Abstract: Nursing has been traditionally considered as a woman’s job. Caring is seen as a natural extension of motherhood. The founder of modern nursing, Florance Nightingale insisted that nursing is not a profession but a natural duty of a woman. Nurses almost always and almost everywhere are women. But this gendered nature of the occupation keeps men away from nursing. The purpose of this paper is to understand men’s reluctance to choose nursing as a profession through the concept of hegemonic masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity shows the most honorable way of being a man. Other masculinity patterns that do not fit this template would be marginalized and excluded. As distinction between woman and man is considered to be a power relation, a man who becomes a nurse may take the risk of being labelled. For men, it seems difficult to reconcile the role of a nurse with the role of being a man. More women have begun working outside their homes and taking the traditionally male-dominated jobs. But the same is not true for men. As power and independency is very important for hegemonic masculinity, the conventionally subordinate and dependent position of nursing would be inappropriate for it. From this point of view, it seems that social gender will continue to be an important factor in nursing.

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