Men in nursing: the importance of gender diversity.

DIVERSITY IS a topic frequently discussed in nursing administrative circles. Administrators recognize that the profession must reflect a variety of ethnic, racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds to provide care to the wide (and growing) diversity of our patients. They understand that few individuals are comfortable entering an arena where they seldom see someone who looks like them, but efforts to address diversity are fraught with challenges. Nonetheless, many nursing leaders are working to overcome the obstacles to full participation of minorities in the profession. Recruiting faculty and students from diverse backgrounds is a constant challenge complicated by longestablished traditions and a largely all-white, allfemale staff. Nursing, for the most part, seems genuinely committed to changing the face of our workforce. Improving cultural sensitivity, at the one end, and encouraging potential recruits at the other, have been moderately successful in some institutions in increasing the racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity in our schools of nursing and, ultimately, in our workforce. Just as racial and ethnic diversity is essential for nursing’s future, so is gender diversity. Yet, the lack of sexual diversity in nursing is rarely discussed. We wait for men to apply for admission to nursing schools and when they stay away, we figuratively shrug our shoulders at their lack of interest. Conversely, medical and law schools have been successful in attracting women when they examined their admission and progression policies and actively recruited women. Nursing, alas, has seldom addressed gender diversity and, thus, the numbers of men in nursing has remained correspondingly low. The absence of men in nursing’s workforce, however, is a phenomenon only in some countries. In Jordan, for example, a dean of a nursing school reports that 95% of her students are men, the exact reverse of that in the United States. Cultural reasons account for this difference. Women are discouraged from seeing, much less touching, men’s bodies. Also, men must have a good job before marrying and having a family, and nursing offers many professional opportunities. In some European countries (The Netherlands comes to mind), men are also more commonly found in nursing’s ranks. Recognizing and accommodating differences, gender as well as race and culture, is essential for nursing as we move toward a more global profession. So what keeps a Western country like the United States from achieving gender diversity in nursing? Are the same factors at work in regard to gender as they are with race and ethnicity? Is discrimination against men in nursing unspoken, unacknowledged, and, thus, unchanged?