Male Nurses & Masculinity

"The robot-proof job men aren't taking" -- Vox, 2017, 8:32 -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOT0GOyw2pY

A good discussion on masculinity, emotion work, and doing gender in the workplace. Best of all, this video features sociologist Marci D. Cottingham and discusses her study RECRUITING MEN, CONSTRUCTING MANHOOD: How Health Care Organizations Mobilize Masculinities as Nursing Recruitment Strategy.

From the video's description: "It’s easy to imagine that the jobs of the future, if they even exist, will all revolve around technology. But it turns out, the jobs that are least likely to succumb to automation are those that involve building human relationships. The healthcare field is a prime example— nurses, physician assistants, and physical therapists have higher-than-average salaries and major expected job growth. These fields share something else in common— they’re dominated by women. Despite the erosion of traditionally “masculine” fields like manufacturing, men just aren’t taking these high-paying, in-demand healthcare jobs in the numbers you’d expect. For decades, nursing in particular has been considered “women’s work,” in part because it’s assumed that women, more so than men, have a kind of innate capacity for caring and empathy. But men in nursing say this mindset is holding us back. For them, caring and empathy are stills that can be developed, not traits someone is worth with or without based on their gender".