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February 5, 2009

Black men in nursing face obstacles to advancement

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[Transcript]

ATLANTA — The stereotype of a nurse is that of a woman, but men in nursing have become more common. And sociologists have noted an effect where male nurses are able to advance into management and higher positions thanks to their gender. It’s called the “glass escalator” effect. But Georgia State’s Adia Harvey Wingfield has found that the same isn’t true for black men in nursing.

HARVEY WINGFIELD: For African-American men who are nurses often they experience these processes very differently, and they don’t have the same type of relationships with their colleagues. They don’t have the same types of close ties to their supervisors, and they don’t encounter, customers, or patients in their particular case, who seem to feel that they really belong at these higher level and higher status jobs. And what ends up happening is that they don’t experience the glass escalator phenomenon. (length: 0.22)

Patient-nurse relationships are a critical part of care. But the black men nurses Harvey Wingfield interviewed as part of her research reported that some patients were nervous around them. Part of this may stem from historical stereotypes of black men as dangerous.

HARVEY WINGFIELD: And a lot of what the men I spoke with experience, especially if they have to treat white women patients, is sort of a current, contemporary manifestation of these types of fears and concerns. They talk about white women being very nervous when they come into their room, and being very uncomfortable with them being treated. And this isn’t a pattern that they observe that other nurses that they talk to have a similar experience with; that is, it’s not that white women nurses or even white men nurses have -- this same sense of white women patients kind of stiffening up or being very uncomfortable. Or even in the example that I cite in the article, of patients’ husbands actually interceding and saying, “you know what? This is just not going to happen. I’m just not comfortable with this kind of physical interaction.” (length: 0.39)

Male nurses find their own ways of caring, which is often seen as feminine and not masculine. In her study, Harvey Wingfield found that the black men nurses she talked with made strides to reach out to fellow African-Americans in helping to increase awareness of health issues disproportionally affecting African-Americans.

HARVEY WINGFIELD: This becomes an alternative side of masculinity for them. This becomes their way of kind of coping with the stigma, so to speak, of being in a feminized position. They still work in nursing which is a highly feminized field, but they’re also able to achieve sort of this practice of masculinity by helping people, by doing something positive, by having a larger impact on the broader community. (length: 0.21)

The next step is to explore the experiences of other minority males in nursing, as well as what role sexual orientation might play in the glass escalator effect. For Georgia State’s RadioLine, I’m Jeremy Craig.