In the Pursuit of an Identity: Analysing the Case of Male Health Care Providers

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  • Anakha Ajith University of Hyderabad

https://doi.org/10.17583/mcs.2020.5461

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Abstract

Being a female-concentrated job, nursing has forgotten the place of men within the profession despite their contribution since time immemorial. The heightened efforts of Florence Nightingale to transform nursing into a respectable female occupation denied men the opportunity to enter this domain. Despite their growing representation, they are still a minority in nursing in countries across the globe. When the occupational roles do not conform to the gender-appropriate roles prescribed by the society, the ‘male’ nurses’ prestige and self-esteem are at risk since others recognize them neither as true nurses nor as real men. Drawing majorly from secondary sources and data gathered from an anthropological study of in-home care providers in the South Indian state of Kerala, this paper on the predicament of men in nursing throws light on the ‘spoiled identity’ they carry; the work stress, gender stereotyping, stigma and discrimination they encounter by always being suspected and their very identity and sexual orientation questioned. A note on the strategies employed by them to overcome the problems is also within the purview of this paper.

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Author Biography

Anakha Ajith, University of Hyderabad

Anakha Ajith is a 4th year Doctoral Research Scholar from the Department of Anthropology, University of Hyderabad, India. Her area of specialization is Medical Anthropology and topics such as Nursing, Women’s Health, Ethno-medicine, Health and Globalization, Medical tourism etc. are of interest to her.

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Published

2020-10-21

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Ajith, A. (2020). In the Pursuit of an Identity: Analysing the Case of Male Health Care Providers. Masculinities &Amp; Social Change, 9(3), 310–336. https://doi.org/10.17583/mcs.2020.5461

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