Nursing Profession and Gender Association Preference
Gender and Nursing Professionals
Gender
is an old term used in linguistic discourse to designate whether nouns are
masculine, feminine, or neuter. It was not normally used either in the language
of social sciences or nursing until after 1955, when the
psychologist sexologist John Money adopted the term to serve as an umbrella
concept distinguishing femininity, or womanliness, and masculinity, or
manliness, from biological sex ( male or female).
By using the word gender he
believed he could avoid continually making qualifying statements about her
maphrodites he was studying, such as “John was in a male sex role except
that his sex organs are not male and his genetic sex is female” (Money ,
1955).
Sex, in his research, belonged more to reproductive biology than to
social science, romance, and nurture, whereas gender belonged to both (Money
& Ehrhardt, 1972). By using a new term to describe a variety of phenomena,
Money opened up a whole new field of research. It was a field ripe for
exploration because it appealed to the increasingly powerful feminist movement
(Bullough, 1994).
Economical Factors
Even
as money was putting forth his ideas about the influence of sociopsychological
factors (nurture) during critical periods of child development, he was strongly
criticized by Milton Diamond, another psychologist active in sex research.
Diamond (1965) indicated that gender decisions for hermaphrodites, about whom
Money had originally drawn his data, were perhaps not as clear-cut as Money
implied.
Diamond hypothesized that an individual hermaphrodite might be
receiving mixed biological signals, which allowed him or her to conform to the
assigned gender rather than change it. He charged that Money was in danger of
deemphasizing biology, or nature, and overemphasizing nurture.
The
argument over nature versus nurture continues, although both sides recognize
the influence of both factors and it remains an argument over degree. At their
scientific best, most biologists and social or behavioral scientists agree that
the coding of gender is multivariate, sequential, and developmental, reflecting
a complex interaction across the boundaries of disciplines and across
biological and social variables.
Gender Traits and Effects
Ann
Constantinople (1973) questioned the assumption that masculinity was the
opposite of femininity and suggested that the identification of masculine
traits might be independent from, rather than the opposite of, the
identification of feminine traits.
The “both/and” concept of
psychological identification quickly replaced the “either/or” not ion
that had dominated thinking on the matter since Lewis Terman developed his
scales of masculinity and femininity.
Sandra Bem (1974) developed a gender
identity measure, the Bem Sex Role Inventory, that treated identification with
masculine traits independently of identification with feminine traits.
Spence
and Helmreich (1974) found wide variation in gender traits, although they also
found that stereotypical masculine personality traits in males were correlated
with self esteem, which reflects just how much influence society and culture
have on self-esteem.
However, the difficulty remains because the scales are
based on observable patterns without any attempt to evaluate whether there are
behaviors that must be distinctly limited to males or to females.
Gender Identity
Bonnie
Bullough held that the formation of gender identity and sexual preference
included three steps:
(a) a genetic predisposition.
(b) prenatal hormonal
stimulation that might follow or interfere with the genetic predisposition.
(c) socialization patterns that shape specific manifestation of the predisposition
(Bullough & Bullough, 1993).
This theory would allow for wider variations
in gene behavior than those of some other theorists. For example, Nancy
Chodorow (1978) noted out that infants, both males and females, generally have
the most contact with their mothers and initially identify and form intense
relationships with their mothers.
For girls, this identification is never
completely severed, but boys must relinquish their identification with their
mothers as they take on masculine roles.
Khodorov
maintained that this differing experience produced distinct coping strategies
for males and females in dealing with the world. Specifically, women emphasize
relationships with others, whereas men focus on their own individualism and
independence from others.
Gilligan (1982) pointed out that to hold this view
limits personality development. A woman (or for that matter, a man) who views
herself only in relationship to others (eg, wife or mother but not an
individual in her own right) may limit her own independent development.
The man
(or woman) who views himself only in terms of his own achievements and
independence (boss, owner, director, sole author) may handicap his capacity for
intimate connections with others. Obviously, conceptions of gender influence
the way we think about what men and women can accomplish or achieve.
Gender Preferences for Nursing
Probably
most nursing theorists have followed Gilligan (1982), although a minority have
emphasized the unique nature of being a woman. This is particularly true of
some of the caring theorists.
Dorothy Johnson (1959), who wrote before the
concept of gender was fully developed, distinguished between caring and curing,
and emphasized the caring aspects of nursing. This influenced Jean Watson in
the establishment of caring centers. The concept of caring also became part of
the basic educational mission of nursing.
The
caring theory fits well into traditional concepts now associated with gender,
but the problem is that one fact of nursing interpreted caring as a uniquely
feminine quality and in the process ignored most of the mainstream research on
gender.
Nurses are involved in gender research, but only a few nurses have
really done the quantitative studies needed to challenge the persistence of
earlier stereotypes both within and outside of the profession.