'Sister' in nursing is sexist

[BollardDodger]

All traditionally male orientated jobs these days have gender-neutral terms - chair instead of chairman; police officer instead of policeman/woman; firefighter etc. So why in nursing are 'Sisters' still called that rather than the gender-neutral term Charge Nurse? Why are female orientated jobs not subjected to the same political correctness restrictions as male orientated jobs?

I'm in paeds nursing too and we also have ward sisters, the band 6s. That's their job title but we never refer to them as that, aside from maybe the doctors? The band 6 running the shift each day is just called the "Nurse in Charge". Paediatrics is full of women anyway so it's never crossed my mind.

I'm also a paeds nurse and we have sisters, and have done in every trust I've worked in. The men are charge nurses. The band 7s are ward managers.

No sisters here, I was a charge nurse but am now a Clinical Lead. Our matrons are called clinical nurse managers.

I don't understand why people would get worked up about this. It's just a name!
Well, there's a thread on the Chat board where plenty of people are getting worked up about the term 'chairman'

whosahappyharry, don't you have male nurses in paeds? One of my kids was in and out of hospital alot when he was little and he always loved it on the rare occasions there were male nurses on the ward. I suppose he identified more with them, the female nurses were lovely (well most of them) and he didn't have a problem with them just liked the chance for a bit of male bonding I suppose.

What if........ the expectant mother is not a 'wife' though?

From Wikipedia: The word derives from Old English mid, "with" and wif, "woman", and thus originally meant "with-woman"

Not nearly enough males grannytomine! On my ward, our play specialist is a man, two of our consultants and a few junior doctors are males, but all other staff are women. No male nurses. It's very disappointing, as the few male paediatric nurses I've met in the past have all been wonderful. And as you say, children take so well to them, especially the little boys. Our play specialist is such a hit.

Charge nurse for male or female nurses in charge in the psychiatric hospital I work at.

Well, there's a thread on the Chat board where plenty of people are getting worked up about the term 'chairman'
I guess I'm in the minority then because I'm not remotely bothered about the term chairman either!

As others have explained, "wife" is the old term for woman, Goodwife being the term of address for any common i.e. not a "Lady" female adult. Husband meant house dweller, being male, the head of the household, so a husband's wife meant literally, "his woman". All very historical and outmoded now, but that's what the words originally meant. And so, mid wife = with woman, as has been pointed out previously. Now of course woman just refers to any female adult human regardless of class or marital status.

Language is full of oddities that seem incongruous to us now, but these are words that have been around for centuries, so inevitably meanings change in that time.

Still using the title Sister, male equivalent is Charge Nurse. My senior managers title is Lead Nurse, one above her is Matron. My manager also frequently referred to as Senior Sister which is also acceptable.

Matrons areally supposed to be called director of nusing now. Sisters are supposed to be called ward managers now. Thas there official role title but traditions die hard and matron and sister are still used quite a bit.

sister/charge nurse who really cares apart from the professionally offended ?but in the mental health trust i worked for we just used actual names or if explaining to pts deputy ward manager etc.

Im a Matron.

My manager is a Clinical Nurse manager

My workplace we have staff nurses (band 5), charge nurses (band 6, would have been sister previously) and senior charge nurses (band 7, would have been matron). No gender required.

Sister is still used by some of my nursing colleagues colloquially but not officially.

"Well, there's a thread on the Chat board where plenty of people are getting worked up about the term 'chairman'"

Well, if "getting worked up" is newspeak for "talking about" then yes you're right.

But as it's not, I suspect you might be doing a bit of stirring.......

But as it's not, I suspect you might be doing a bit of stirring.......
No. I'm genuinely interested.

So why did you say people were "getting worked up" then?

I work in a hospital. We have 2 band 6s and one band 7.....titles are Sister and Senior Sister.

whosahappyharry, it is a shame. Glad you've got your play specialist though. I did find children's ward very female but I am going back to the 80s so I thought it might be more balanced now. Thinking back the only regular male on the ward was an orderly and my son loved him, they would gang up on the nurses sometimes which my son found hilarious. Naughty 4 year old at the time but don't know what the orderly's excuse was. Anything to cheer up a 4 year old scared about an operation.

So why did you say people were "getting worked up" then?
Don't know really. No need to get worked up about it, though

You see, it's one of those things people say to try to silence/ridicule women when they express any concerns. Only a short step to "getting hysterical" or the Mumsnet classic "frothing"

Language is important.