Building Boys Bulletin 4-15-24
Nursing, boys, & gender stereotypes
Before I wrote about boys — before I had boys — I was a Registered Nurse.
I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing in 1995 and started working on the medical-surgical unit of a community hospital shortly after that. I spent the next 10 years or so working on medical-surgical units, a kidney-liver-pancreas transplant unit, and in skilled nursing facilities (a.k.a, “nursing homes.”) Three of my four sons were born during the time; #4 was born after I’d transitioned fully to writing & parenting.
So, as a nurse/#boymom, I was not surprised when Norwegian researchers found that preschool boys who believe that nurses are mostly women are less interested in becoming nurses. Preschool children, after all, are acutely away of gender and trying to figure out where they fit in the world. I also agree completely that
being warm and caring is not the only thing important for being a good nurse; you also need to be efficient, organised, and good at calculating medications
Amen! As anyone who’s ever attended nursing school will tell you, it’s hard. My coursework included anatomy, physiology, biochemistry (that class almost brought me to my knees), microbiology, nutrition, pharmacology, sociology, and at least two different psychology classes — and those aren’t even the primary nursing classes. So, yes, nursing is an intellectually demanding job that also requires efficiency, organization, flexibility, and diplomacy.
But then….
Cue sexism & gender stereotypes!
…one of the Norwegian researchers said
if we describe nurses more with these traits, maybe more boys would feel that this is a occupation suitable for them.
Sigh.
To attract boys, we should…make the profession sound less “girly?” We should tell boys that nursing is efficiency and organization and intellectually demanding, not care & compassion?
GAH!
I realize that we are living in world that’s still awash in gender stereotypes. I realize that we have to help our boys live in the world as it is currently (while preparing them for the future). And yes, I think it’s a great idea to emphasize and talk about the intellectually demanding, needs-organization-&-efficiency sides of nursing… BUT NOT SO BOYS WILL THINK THAT’S FOR ME!
I think it’s good idea because everyone needs to know that nursing is a complex, challenging, rewarding profession. If we shared that side of nursing more often, maybe people would stop asking smart nursing students why they’re not going to medical instead. Maybe we’d attract some students (of all sexes and genders) who previously wouldn’t have considered a nursing career.
Moving beyond gender stereotypes
Attracting boys to nursing by de-emphasizing care advances and underscores the idea that “care” is somehow feminine. Sure, it might helps boys find a path to nursing a world that still clearly equates “care” with “female,” but it doesn’t do a damn thing to help young boys that realize that males can be caregivers as well.
And THAT is the limiting stereotype we must address. Our boys don’t need us to steer away from care discussions; they need us to steer into those discussions. They need us to highlight and celebrate the many ways boys & men care for their families, friends, and communities. They need us to help them tackle limiting ideas of masculinity, maleness, and manhood. They need us to tell them that they can be anything they want to be — just as we’ve been telling our girls for the last 50 years or so.
What do you think?
Here’s to building boys!
Jennifer
P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for Building Boys Book Club! We start Apr. 25.
IN THE NEWS
Is Nursing Not for Boys? Gender Stereotypes in Preschool Surprise Researchers
Highlights:
“Boys who believed that nurses and preschool teachers are mostly women were less interested in becoming that themselves. At the same time, girls who believed the same were more interested in becoming that.”
“We adults talk about nurses and preschool teachers in ways that make boys think these occupations are not suitable for them”
“In preschools, the kids see that it’s mostly women working there. Therefore, it’s important to get more men in there so that the children can see that it’s actually possible to be a male preschool teacher”
Boys are Suffering Too. Here’s How We Miss That.
Highlights:
“The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) asks about feelings of sadness or hopelessness – mood states that girls are far more likely than boys to report. It does not…ask about feelings of irritability or anger, the moods often associated with emotional pain in boys.”
“Noticing emotional pain in boys requires being willing to search beyond the usual places when looking for evidence of their distress.”
“Professionally, I know from nearly thirty years of clinical practice that no kid who feels good about himself becomes drawn to hateful worldviews.”
“For most of us, it’s easier to feel compassion for those who suffer from anxiety or depression than to summon sympathy for those who hole up in dark corners of the internet, compulsively gamble or play video games, act out, or spout hate.”
“If we are going to do right by our boys, we need to see past the negativity on the surface to recognize underlying distress that deserves our compassion and help.”
Forget “Toxic Masculinity”: We Need to Give Young Men Hope
Highlights:
“If we want boys and young men to be better human beings we won’t achieve anything if we tell them they’re trash.”
“If adults told me to behave because I was a disgrace or making a fool of myself, it just intensified my behaviour. It was only when a few smart teachers spoke to me not as a trouble-maker, but as someone who was perhaps a little troubled as a teen and needed a friendly hand to help them onto a better path, that I started to listen.”
“We need to shift away from the humiliating language of ‘toxic masculinity’, and instead present a vision of positive masculinity.”
6 Ways Educators Can Bolster Boys’ Social Skills
Highlights:
“The self-regulatory components of the brain aren’t integrated as quickly in boys as in girls, and ‘boys that have a harder time picking up on social cues are often the most aggressive because they misinterpret accidental gestures as malicious intent.’”
“Boys who feel awkward might opt out of recess, lunch and other unstructured social time. To ease their discomfort, schools can … extra balls to outdoor areas, designate a board game table in the cafeteria, or hold chess club meetings during lunch.”
The One Who Cares the Least, Wins
Highlights:
“…I was struck by just how closely the ‘how to get women to sleep with you’ advice of the manosphere influencers echoes the ‘play hard to get’ logic of my own dating years. These masculinity gurus are now recycling a version of the same tedious advice in reverse, encouraging young guys pretend to be equally emotionally uninvested as a way of manipulating women into sleeping with them.”
“Spend any time in the manosphere and it’s easy to start to hate men and boys. But after watching a lot of this garbage my heart breaks for them too.”
“Studied indifference is the cultural norm that boys and men are expected to aspire to across the board…Through history and across cultures, masculinity norms consistently demand that boys hide their feelings and refrain from showing vulnerability or weakness- not just with romantic partners, but with the world at large, including, or perhaps especially with their friends.”
New Study Sheds Light on the Impact of Racism on Black Male Suicides
Highlights:
“According to a new study from the University of Georgia, one in three Black men who live in rural areas in Georgia have thought about death or suicide in the last two weeks.”
“Coming of age in an environment with limited resources and experiencing racism while growing up makes it difficult to have deep and fulfilling relationships with others. Feelings of mistrust and an abundance of caution towards relationships can lead to feelings of isolation, which leads to thoughts of death and suicide.”
“We found when Black men were exposed to childhood adversity, they may develop an internal understanding of the world as somewhere they are devalued, where they could not trust others, and they could not engage the community in a supportive way”
Teen Girls Confront an Epidemic of Deepfake Nudes in School
Highlights:
“Boys in several states have used widely available “nudification” apps to pervert real, identifiable photos of their clothed female classmates, shown attending events like school proms, into graphic, convincing-looking images of the girls with exposed A.I.-generated breasts and genitalia.”
“In some cases, boys shared the faked images in the school lunchroom, on the school bus or through group chats on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, according to school and police reports.”
“At Beverly Vista Middle School in Beverly Hills, Calif., administrators contacted the police in February after learning that five boys had created and shared A.I.-generated explicit images of female classmates. Two weeks later, the school board approved the expulsion of five students”
The Troubling Trend in Teenage Sex
Highlights:
Nearly 2/3 of women in her most recent campus-representative survey of 5,000 college students said a partner had choked them during sex (1/3 in their most recent encounter).
“A male freshman said ‘girls expected’ to be choked and, even though he didn’t want to do it, refusing would make him seem like a ‘simp.’”
“Twenty years ago, sexual asphyxiation appears to have been unusual among any demographic, let alone young people who were new to sex and iffy at communication. That’s changed radically in a short time”
“Tell [your kids] that misinformation about certain practices, including choking, is rampant, that in reality it has grave health consequences. Plus, whether or not a partner initially requested it, if things go wrong, you’re generally criminally on the hook.”
Highlights:
“It’s not a matter of if teens bend the rules and use poor judgment, it’s when. It’s not a reflection of weak or ineffective parenting. It’s also not a sign of raising an immoral human. It’s a developmental necessity to test limits of authority”
“Sometimes – many times in parenting – what makes sense logically doesn’t match what works on an emotional and psychological level.”
“Just like we want to help our kids understand their emotions, we need to understand our emotions about a charged situation before we can think more clearly about how to proceed. In many parenting scenarios, this means understanding what we’re scared of.”
ON BOYS Podcast
Gifted & Twice-Exceptional (2E) Boys
Building Boys on Air
Thanks to a gracious invitation from Christopher Pepper, I was able to join him to discuss Raising Boys in Today’s Climate on Wisconsin Public Radio’s popular “Central Time” show on Tues. Apr. 9. You can listen to the whole clip here.
Join the Discussion: Building Boys Book Club Starts Apr. 25!
