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It has been a generally accepted notion that when it comes to nursing, women are the front liners while on the field of architecture and engineering men dominates. But this battle of sexes in the corporate world has gone moot in real terms. The problem then here resides in the minds of each person who view a particular profession to be exclusively associated with gender. What could lead someone to think that nursing profession is only a girl thing is not a matter of perception with respect to statistic but only a matter of stereotyping. We have been capriciously won over by media’s branding that nurses are women and engineers or doctors are men.

Top it with surprise, but the numbers also side with the stereotypes. In a survey, there is a huge difference in terms of the numbers of male nurses in the military and in civilian practice. Since 1901, men are not allowed to be nurse in the military. The reason behind this thinking might dwell on the premise that during the time the military needs more men for the battle than for nursing thereby giving the job to their female counterparts. So “dare not use a nursing uniform in the army” during the time was the motto of every military man. But the numbers got it way stumbling in reverse when the US Army records showed that 25% of their male soldiers are actually nurses. Compare that with the civilian workforce and you will be shocked by the 4.9% of males that actually practice nursing and proudly wear nursing uniform. That is, in every 1000 nurses only 49 are male and the rest are women. Another study can also be asserted to be relevant – male doctors are bringing in the number that women do.

The numbers might answer why people are often stereotyping nursing profession with the female gender – they see more women in nursing uniform than men making it plausible for them to conclude that nursing is exclusive for women. But there are also debate about the difference of men and women in outlook, working attitudes, emotional structure and the like that lead to this branding. Men according to many are not suited to be nurses as they do not have that soft heart – yet another typecast – while women are very gentle and so on. Another assertion is that males are not as emotional as females are that they tend to not perform nursing care to their patients.

However, there is no exact reason why the number of male nurses is still pegged at a negligible level when in fact history accounts that since time immemorial, there had already been male nurses practicing. Maybe not that same male nurse we often see in most modern hospital complete with nursing uniform, but male nurses in history are those who regardless of dress they wear function just the same as what we have now. Of course there are departments where a male nurse may not be assigned to. Example of this is the maternity department. Also, male nurses may often not comfortably accepted by young female patients.

Gender association to a particular profession should now be eradicated in the views of the society. Though there are not presented here, it does not necessarily mean that it is a result of the gender stereotyping of the profession. It might be that there are just certainly things why men’s numbers do not often fare with that of the women in the nursing profession. But definitely, nursing profession is for everybody regardless of gender.