Gender and Feminization in Health Care Professions

Abstract

Within health care, there has long been a gender division of professional labor: men have predominated in higher‐status, higher‐paying professions like medicine and dentistry, while women’s health care work has been clustered in so‐called support occupations such as nursing. Historically, health care professions were gendered, and beliefs about gender came to be embedded in professional work. Recently, however, traditional gender divisions of labor are being challenged by the feminization of professions in the United States and Canada. Women’s participation is expanding in traditionally male‐dominated professions. This article explores the nature and causes of this feminization and considers whether feminization is changing the significance of gender to health care employment.

Pressures to “Measure Up” in Surgery

“…24,25,27 For instance, new members take their place among the fellowship of surgeons by acting like other surgeonsperhaps even exaggerating it-to belong. [40][41][42][43] 29,[37][38][39] For instance, gender issues and identity dissonance might arise for some women in surgery when the qualities traditionally praised in a surgeon are culturally associated with masculinity: power; hardness; invulnerability; independence; hierarchism; and an intense, narrowly focused drive.…”

Exploring the current working profiles of nutritional therapists to inform curriculum and professional development

“…If this was similar at the time of this data capture (2015) then the results may represent 6% of the male BANT registered NT's. This indicates that this therapy, as with other health care professions [35] and complementary therapies [36,37] tends to attract a female workforce. Taylor 2010 [36], suggests that four times more women than men are likely to engage in holistic professions and Cottingham et al2015 [37] also found a similar trend with a female majority, 91%, among Naturopaths and Herbal Medicine practitioners in New Zealand, as did Leach et al, 2014. (86.7%) [38] across Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States and the United Kingdom.…”

The making of a glass slipper

“…"feminized", and how this results in the marginalization of certain identities (Adams, 2010;Bolton and Muzio, 2008;Griffin and Karepova, 2011;Muzio and Tomlinson, 2012;Riska, 2008;Witz, 1990). Whilst much research has typically focused on structural factors that determine occupational segregation, Ashcraft (2013) has recently argued that, in order to gain a more dynamic view of inclusion and exclusion, it is important to highlight how individual embodied identities and the nature of work are reciprocally associated.…”