Nursing bursary for men

[MissMoneyPlant]

Interested in your thoughts on this:

Coventry University is addressing the growing gender imbalance on nursing and healthcare courses with a new bursary aimed at encouraging men into the field.
The university has announced a fund of £30,000 to help 10 men in subjects where they are under-represented including nursing, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, midwifery operating department practice, and dietetics.
...
"The award, spread across each year of the degree, is believed to be the first created specifically for men taking nursing and healthcare courses in UK higher education
...
The total number of nursing applicants in England fell by 23 per cent this year. The drop has been linked to the removal of NHS bursaries for healthcare students ...

Rob James, Academic Dean for the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at Coventry University, and chair of its Athena SWAN committee for gender equality said:
“... While there’s lots being done nationally - and at Coventry - to encourage women into sciences and engineering we hope this new initiative will lead the way in addressing the persistent low proportion of men working in many healthcare professions."

Link: www.coventry.ac.uk/primary-news/university-tackles-nursing-gender-gap-with-first-bursary-for-men/

Aside from the chair of the committee for gender equality being a (white) man (), I'm not sure what I think about this. In theory, steps towards gender equality, especially men taking on caring roles = good thing. But something seems not quite right to me. It seems a kick in the teeth in light of the general bursary for all students being scrapped. Like the work isnt valued if it's a woman doing it. And I'm pretty sure the main barriers for women in traditionally "male" areas are not financial, whereas this seems to suggest give men enough money and they'll do it... the work that women have done for years for no or little pay. IDK, maybe I'm being nitpicking...

All patriarchal pressures that affect the men opting for caring professions

Understood. Doesn't stop it being galling that when the women complain that a job is low-paid and they can't afford to train, nothing happens, but when they want men to do it, suddenly money is found.

And I speak as one of those women who's fought her way through a STEM degree (and A-levels, and GCSEs come to think of it) and jobs to a senior level. And fought it definitely was - as the smallest person in the room it can be quite a challenge to assert your authority, and your right to be in a place

I just want to echo a pp with the fact that men in nursing tend to be promoted into management very quickly, and so this merely means that an even larger number of them will be.

I'd also like to say that I don't understand why people can't see why male midwives might be a problem for a lot of women. There is indeed a shortage of midwives here, so increasing the number of midwives that won't be able to attend a proportion of women seems nonsensical.

I can't imagine anything worse than a male midwife.

I live in an area with a high proportion of Muslim women most of whom are very strictly religious. If the local hospital took on a single male midwife then he wouldn't be able to attend any of them at all - I personally would not want a male midwife, but imagine that as a woman with only personal issues with it, rather than religious beliefs against it, I would be pressured into having a male midwife so that the female staff could attend the women who have even less choice.

Datun I can't imagine anything worse than a male midwife.

Male mental health nurses working with vulnerable women?

Midwifery in an interesting one - obviously there's no male equivalent but if there was I'd support that being overwhelmingly male-dominated. I wouldn't rule out a male midwife personally, but part of that is because I'd expect him to be exceptional to have got there in the first place - if they just did whatever it took to recruit 50% men into midwifery I'd be a lot more wary. The occasional male midwife, as it stands, can attend the occasional woman who is comfortable with that. Although Dodo's point could be an issue - if the demographics of the area mean a male midwife would be unsuitable/unable to attend most women, is there any way of them specifying female applicants only? I assume not...

I don't think there is an equivalent because of the socialization aspect. The men's trauma centre near me deals with PTSD, sexual assault, childhood trauma and the staff are overwhelmingly female staff. The male clients seem to have no issues with this. The ones I know at least.

On the weekend a friend of my DH's was very upset talking to me about some difficult stuff. I said, "why don't you talk to DH?" (his friend of decades). Nope. Women are in charge of emotional support. And intimate care.

I thought personal care jobs with exempt from Equality Act regulation?

But yes a lot of men don't seem to have an issue with women doing personal care in the same way women have with the reverse. As well as socialisation, I wonder if it's due to the physicality aspect - even vulnerable men are less likely to be physically weaker than the women looking after them.

obviously there's no male equivalent but if there was I'd support that being overwhelmingly male-dominated.

There is, kind of - urology.

if the demographics of the area mean a male midwife would be unsuitable/unable to attend most women, is there any way of them specifying female applicants only? I assume not...

I think those kinds of things tend to be rather self-selecting though. For example in an area where there are many women who would not see a male doctor on their own, in a GP practice with male and female doctors, then women needing to see a GP would tend to either choose the female doctor or go with a relative. This would lead to the female GPs being overbooked (what with women needing to see GPs more often both on their own behalves and with their children).

So in a practice like that, the male GPs would mainly do the appointments that were not of this nature - e.g. if the area has a White elderly population and a Bangladeshi young family population, they'd end up with the White elderly patients. I imagine you get to know the demographics and preferences of patients and decide that since your practice will, in effect, be mainly White elderly patients, you will or will not go for that job. Or you'd move on if it became that sort of GP practice.

If you have an area that's got a lot of new Somali immigrants who won't have a male midwife, and a smaller population of young, at risk, White mums who need close monitoring because they tend to lack family support, if you were a male midwife who liked doing things like young mum-to-be groups alongside an education setting, or subsequent pregnancies in mums whose babies had been removed, you might choose that job. If you didn't, you'd work elsewhere.

(note stereotypes but you get the picture).

Can't you not let men have this one?

It's a £1k/year bursary to encourage more uptake, in a profession that desperately needs more people. It'll barely dent the tuition fees, and it's not a salary difference.

It's the only male-focused, sanctioned, "positive discrimination" measure I can think of (but that could just be me).

And this line is funny:
the chair of the committee for gender equality being a (white) man
Does every gender equality role or committee need to be female-led?

By saying "I'm not sure what I think about this" it sounds like you're asking how to spin it in a "women are the victims again " way. Not everything has to be spun.

Bollocks are men underrepresented in operating department practice. And yy to whoever said that men are overrepresented at management level.

obviously there's no male equivalent but if there was I'd support that being overwhelmingly male-dominated.

There is, kind of - urology.

Only kind of, I think. Based purely on anecdata, I don't think my father minded having male or female practitioners when he was being investigated and treated for prostate cancer. I am sure there are some men who would mind, but I suspect, with absolutely no data at all, that more women would object to male midwives than men would object to female urologists - and this mostly is down to socialisation. But I could be totally wron.

I could be wrong, too.

(Honestly, phone, you try and correct stuff I meant to type into garbage, but when I make a typo that should be corrected, you ignore it. What is the point?)

"Can't you not let men have this one?"

I don't think anyone here has the power to stop this university offering this bursary.

Even if you take sex out of the conversation,how wise is it to offer incentives for a specific group of people,with very little takers and some of those unable to work universally in all hospitals in all areas , in a profession where there is already a massive shortage?
It's not going to sort out the shortage issues,some applicants will have restrictions of where to work and how much and it will create anger and resentment from the ones left to fend to themselves.

The GP analogy does not work when it comes to midwifery.

drspouse

That is a false analogy because urologists work with male and female patients. There is even a specific subdiscipline called female urology. I have problems with my kidneys and am under a consultant urologist.

I think perhaps you are thinking of andrology which is not the same exactly, and which is a male specific medical discipline.

A few years ago, DH had to have andrology investigations. We were discussing male/female imbalances in healthcare so on a whim, I looked up the andrology staff at our local teaching hospital. All male. The consultants, registrars, senior nurses, all men. When DH went to have his prostate examined - pretty much the equivalent in dignity and comfort terms of a sweep, from what I can make out - everyone in the room was a man.

At the same hospital, over 50% of the obstetricians inc the head of dept are men. Male students are included as routine. There are male MWs.

I had a home birth for various reasons but mainly because there were no men working on the home birth MW team. My lovely MW confided she knew just how I felt, and she wouldn't have wanted a man either.

Midwifery is different because giving birth is not a medical procedure. It is supporting a woman to do something. It is not just about doing something to her, like surgery. It requires huge empathy and trust and if the patient feels violated by the very presence of the MW that is just no good. Plus there is no equivalent for men, no situation where a man has to undertake a dangerous, painful, emotionally charged feat naked whilst immensely vulnerable. If they did you can bet it would be all about achieving the optimum psychological support, not chucking them in with someone who made them feel hugely uncomfortable and telling them to suck it up.

Well, when the gender identity law is passed, women can just identify as men to get the scholarship. Job done.

MM, is that you 😀