How would you feel about having a male midwide

[Lardlizard]

Just interested in the points of view

Nursing” and “Midwifery” are two completely different categories.

And most procedures that I performed during my midwifery placement were exactly the same as I performed in my nursing placement.

Yes you could make midwifery female staff only. You are still left with how the self same procedures are managed in the general healthcare setting.

4-bed bays, all in one open area is a ward. Space between them being the only difference.

20 individual rooms males a bigger difference but can patients lock their doors?

Unfortunately I have had the misfortune of having to visit hospital, and don't live in the days of Florence Nightingale (though many such wards do still exist.

You weren't clear, not my misunderstanding of anything you said.

Not sure why you directed that question at me, little. The thread is about midwifery and that's what I've been talking about the whole time (apart from when I mentioned health visitors) and yes, your first posts on here were to ask 'what about men?' I don't even need to scroll back and check and they stood out on a Feminist thread about women's boundaries.

They may be the same procedures to you carrying them out, but they’re not the same to me when having it done to me, because I am pushing out a baby or have a milk duct unclogged when it is a midwife helping me, not when a nurse is helping me.

....again...male MWs v female.

What sex for MW is the question.

Not what current nursing practices are!

Again, a male presence intimately can stop labour- surely that's all we need to know, unless a woman specifically prefers to have her intimate care from a male.

I think the power within a woman's body to put a stop to labour has always been ignored/negated in order to facilitate male medics, and medicine generally.

4-bed bays, all in one open area is a ward. Space between them being the only difference.

No they aren't. Bays are grouped together into 1 ward - 1 ward manager, 1 team staffing them, 1 handover at start of shift and nursing team divided to care for the patients at the start of the shift. Numbers of male vs female patients change from 1 shift to another and sometimes throughout the shift so no way of planning rotas to ensure that enough male and female staff to care for male and female patients.

Many times Bay A has started out as a female bay and then, due to discharges and admissions throughout the day, has ended up a male bay by the end. Would you send home the female nurses during their shift and call in an extra male nurse to accommodate that?

There are no male patients on a maternity ward.

Ok.

Don't complain about the perpetuation of gender stereotypes then when you are actually part of the perpetuation.

I’m pretty sure that the ending of gender stereotypes is not dependent on some man squeezing my breast for ten minutes to unblock a milk duct, or putting his hand in my vagina.

I am not part of any perpetuating of gender role stereotypes!!

Do you think the same about refuges? Where women and DC hide.

I think it's telling the world how very capable women are at being great support and a strong network for each other in the face of the worst and most challenging times of life.

How they can also be great professionals to men, but that doesn't mean any blurring of boundaries.

Theres more than one point under contention here its not only about stereotypes is it.

It's more about women's boundaries, which need to not be obliterated just because, the situation dictates they don't matter!

Like I said, I'd my only help was a paedo, I'd take it for the immediacy of both being alive, thats not right.

*if [my only help]

Anyone else hovering over "well, you feminists want equality and now you have it you're complaining" on their NAMALT bingo board?

Because it is very difficult to put forward a case for preventing men becoming midwives based on women not wanting a man to perform certain procedures unless, I suppose, that you are saying only in a midwifery setting do you not want a man to catheterise you, see you without clothes on, examine you intimately or give you a bedpan.

If you determine that women can also decline a male nurse providing the same care, in a general healthcare setting, which is a reasonable assumption, then that has inevitable consequences for the recruitment of men into nursing. That has a knock on effect as to whether nursing continues to be seem as a female occupation.

That is an awkward truth.

When in labour ... wouldn’t care ... honestly I realised that anyone that could help
Was welcome I had no pride at that point

If you determine that women can also decline a male nurse providing the same care, in a general healthcare setting, which is a reasonable assumption, then that has inevitable consequences for the recruitment of men into nursing. That has a knock on effect as to whether nursing continues to be seem as a female occupation
Well doesn't that equate to fairly equal division of sexes in nursing, if men are given intimate male care and women female?

I've missed something, I must have.

Also, the feminism thing?

Does me wanting to assert intimacy boundaries make me a feminist?

I don't think that's what feminism is about at all.

Although I guess it's possible to assert the opposite that lack of boundaries might indicate a lack of.feminism, but it indicates a lot of other things too, the systematic erosion of boundaries, which if prevalent in one sex is inequality and sexism at play. If you believe that then you would have a feminist belief about how one sex is treated by a certain type of society.

Quite the opposite smother. Anyone who feels uncomfortable with any HCP, be they male or female, and in any health care setting, should feel able to ask for an alternative.

What I find sad is that so many women in labour don't know they have the choice to refuse care, or maybe it's that they feel able to do so because they are in a very vulnerable position, tired, in pain, understandably more concerned for their unborn baby at the time. This is why birthing partners who can advocate for them are so important.

Smotheroffive

I am not saying anything is right or wrong.

I am saying that a consequence of certain choices might be maintaining the current status quo. So accepting that female nurses can care for male and female patients whilst male nurses can only care for male patients will result in nursing remaining a female occupation.

That will result in perpetuating certain stereotypes.

That may well be something that we all accept. I am simply pointing out that reality.

Nursing is not a female occupation. Nursing is not midwifery.
Women have had to fight, and continue to fight, for the right to see a female HCP.

Men can fight for their own rights to see male HCPs without reference to my vagina.

Then in order for that to happen nursing recruitment needs to be closed to female students until the numbers balance and then female nurses working on male wards will have to be replaced by male nurses.

It would be up to men to decide how they want their health care organised, not you.

Oh yeah if us women want choice and bodily autonomy then we'll have to accept that we can't apply for nursing roles any longer. That'll show us!

I wouldnt mind

silverlinings I don't believe it. No, I don't buy that asserting boundaries makes me a feminist (as proposed by pp) I was querying their statement.

I also fail to see how it's stereotyping nursing roles, or women as MWs.

Only in the same way that a finite number of staff are needed in any organisation then the recruitment opportunity is over.

That actually happens all the time,we don't have a right to insist any organisation continue recruitment when its no longer required.

If there is an imbalance and men want male intimate care, that's their argument, and nothing to do with women wanting intimate female MWs.

They would have to do a recruitment drive for more men, but again,not the topic under discussion.