Over the last few decades, women have made significant progress in male-dominated professions such as finance, law and medicine. Men have made far less progress in the other direction, into jobs like primary school teaching, nursing and social work. If that is going to change, men need to be encouraged into careers they might not have considered 10 or 20 years ago. So rather than speak to men already established in these roles, we got in touch with three students about to begin theirs.
Men in nursing
Lorenzo Della Volpe is a 22-year-old nursing student from Pisa, Italy. When he graduates in September 2020, he will enter a healthcare industry drastically different from the one he signed up for.
“It will be even more difficult to encourage people to become nurses in a post-pandemic world,” he says. “Every day, nurses are in close contact with people of ill health, you are constantly at risk.”
Lorenzo will soon be one of just 20 per cent of nurses in Italy who are men, a figure similar to the rest of Europe and the UK. He hopes the media’s recent fixation with frontline workers will encourage more men to follow him. “In today’s society there are few people who know what a nurse is capable of, or what their job entails.”
A lot of guys will see the low pay and perceived low status of a nurse as a sacrifice rather than an opportunity
Lorenzo Della Volpe
He adds: “If more men understood the responsibilities of a nurse, such as administering drugs under intense pressure, then maybe they would be more inclined to pursue a career in it, because they would have more respect for the job nurses do.”
The weekly applause for the NHS has already dwindled and the free meals will soon expire. Society is beginning to forget the healthcare workers it once hero-worshipped. For Lorenzo, that isn’t a problem. “Nurses are not ‘heroes’ but people who have chosen to dedicate their life 100 per cent to help other people,” he says. “It makes me angry that nurses are only considered to be heroes during a national crisis.”
He has always wanted to help people. “I started to get closer to the healthcare community thanks to the Italian Red Cross. But the real reason I decided to become a nurse was when my grandmother got sick in 2016. From then on I decided to expand my interests in the health field, my end goal is to be able to help people in the same way I wanted to help my grandmother when she was in need.”
Lorenzo is in the minority. Most boys don’t grow up wanting to become nurses, and he thinks the way men and women are represented on screen is part of the reason. “In Italy, and I suspect in England too, nurses are still mostly portrayed by women on TV and in films.”
In the UK, terms such as ‘matron’ and ‘sister’ still echo around hospital corridors. Gender-neutral job titles would be a step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done. The NHS is rightly recognised for its diversity, but if it truly wants to reflect society it needs to address its gender imbalance at both ends: only 12 per cent of surgeons in the UK are women. More male nurses might, with luck, help pave the way for more female surgeons.
Lorenzo does think toxic masculinity is at play. “A lot of guys will see the low pay and perceived low status of a nurse as a sacrifice rather than an opportunity. Until that mindset changes, things are likely to stay the same.”
Men in primary teaching
The picture is similar in education, where only 25 per cent of classroom teachers are men. Stu Hunter, 26, from Leicester, is about to start his career as an early years teacher, working with children aged six and under, at a British international school in Luxembourg.
“When you get into primary education, the gender imbalance becomes even more obvious,” he says. “During my early years’ primary course I was one of three guys in a group of 28.” The numbers back him up: men make up just 3 per cent of the early years workforce in the UK.
As a society, we are slowly changing what it means to be a man, and children in their first years of school need male role models to help that along.
The role of a primary school teacher does not allow you to act in a hyper-aggressive way
Stu Hunter
Stu is more than happy to belt out nursery rhymes or be the butt of the occasional classroom joke, which is just as well, because five-year-olds are a notoriously tough crowd. “My year four teacher inspired me to pursue a career in primary education,” he says. “When I was her student, you could tell she genuinely cared about us.” He adds: “Students respond more to teachers who are passionate about their jobs.”
You are far more likely to come across a male headteacher or secondary school teacher than a male primary school teacher. There is a perception that the older the students, the more authoritative and less nurturing a teacher needs to be.
Stu thinks male teachers need to be seen as nurturing too. “The role of a primary school teacher does not allow you to act in a hyper-aggressive way, and I think that’s a good thing,” he says. “During the nursery years, parents prioritise nurturing qualities over teaching qualities, and this might create a subconscious bias towards female teachers.”
Rightly or wrongly, there is a culture of suspicion around men in early years education, which may explain why so few pursue it. Stu’s own experience as a teaching assistant bears this out. “I’m aware that I have to be more careful when a child has hurt themselves or had an ‘accident’. I have a duty of care to the child but there are some occasions when I will call upon a female colleague to assist in certain situations because I feel I’m unable to.”
If we are serious about gender equality, men need to challenge these norms and take on every demanding part of the job.
Men in social work
Jack Oliver-Blaney, 26, is a trainee social worker from Brighton. At the time of writing, men make up 18 per cent of the social care workforce in the UK, and Jack’s work placement reflected the wider picture. “The manager was a senior guy but every other member of the frontline team was female.”
I think it says something about masculinity in society that so few men are prepared to do that kind of work
Jack Oliver-Blaney
As with nursing and teaching, Jack says, “men are more inclined to consider social work as a low-status job.” He also thinks the demands of the role put men off. “Social work is emotional labour, it’s within our code of ethics to act in an anti-oppressive way,” he says. “I think it says something about masculinity in society that so few men are prepared to do that kind of work.”
There is no reason social work shouldn’t appeal to men as much as it does to women. Plenty of men assume it is mostly about companionship, but Jack sees it differently. “I think social work is quite rare because it’s inherently political in its DNA,” he says. “As a social worker, you want to dismantle systematic oppression by empowering vulnerable individuals in society to change for the better.”
Why so few men?
The common thread is that men feel less inclined to become nurses, teachers or social workers because society has taught them it isn’t their job. Women should be no more obliged than men to do this work.
All three men described their work as a privilege. If boys are going to grow up into the kind of men we want in society, more of them need to follow in these footsteps.
- Image: Tim Mossholder
Read next: “My strength comes from my vulnerability and openness” and Masks and masculinity
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