# 'Male Nurses' In Other Countries? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 15, 2020, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521 "2020-03-15T05:30:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/21 "2020-03-15T16:12:12Z")
> [@jerez](#): > > Just noticed this ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_English) entry): > > _Another manifestation of grammatical gender that continues to function in English is the use of certain nouns to refer specifically to persons or animals of a particular sex: widow/widower, actor/actress, etc._ That is, after all, Wikipedia and I think they have it wrong. Those are examples of natural gender, not grammatical gender. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/22 "2020-03-15T17:54:09Z")
I think the clearest way to explain what’s going on is to give a history of the word “nurse”. There was a Latin word “nutricia” which meant a woman who nourishes. This became an Old French word and then a Middle English word. It meant (as a verb) to breastfeed or (as a noun) the person who did the breastfeeding. Then it became a word for a woman who takes care of young children. Then it was used for a woman who takes care of people at hospitals. During all this history, it was assumed that only women would have this job. Then men began becoming nurses. People began referring to them as male nurses since they thought that otherwise people would assume they were women. Now people use the word to mean a nurse of any sex. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/23 "2020-03-15T18:22:41Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Agreed, but we’re discussion what the words are, not what the words should be. But the word is “nurse”. So the comment is most relevant. ---
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/24 "2020-03-15T20:03:33Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > In French, “personne” is feminine, but that does not mean a man is not a personne. In Latin, “poeta” is masculine, but a woman may be a poet. And yet, in languages of Latin origin certain words may have both masculine and feminine versions. For example, in Romanian the word \*\*student \*\*(= university student) indicates a male student whereas the word \*\*studenta \*\*indicates a female student. Similarly, the word \*\*elev \*\*(= pupil, student) indicates a male pupil whereas the word \*\*eleva \*\*indicates a female pupil. Romanian call nurses (doctor’s) assistants, with the word \*\*asistent \*\*indicating the male nurse and \*\*asistenta \*\*indicating the female nurse. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/25 "2020-03-15T21:00:16Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > the English word "nurse’ is actually female. Always has been. Nonsense. [https://www.o-wm.com/article/my-scope-practice-retrospective-civil-war-nurse](https://www.o-wm.com/article/my-scope-practice-retrospective-civil-war-nurse) > [@](#): > > Before the American Civil War (fought 1861–1865), nurses were 5 times more likely to be male [https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/exhibits/CivilWarImagery/Civil\_War\_Nurses.cfm](https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/exhibits/CivilWarImagery/Civil_War_Nurses.cfm) > [@](#): > > Before the Civil War, most nurses in the United States were male. > **[Civil War Nurses](https://www.historynet.com/civil-war-nurses/?r)** > > Information and Articles About Civil War Nurses, one of the many roles filled by women of the civil war Civil War Nurses summary: Thousands of women > [@](#): > > At the outbreak of the war, the nursing profession was in its infancy and dominated by men–women generally were considered too frail to cope with the rigors of administering to the sick. > **[The Growth of Male Nurses in Health Care | Bradley University Online](https://onlinedegrees.bradley.edu/blog/the-growth-of-male-nurses-in-health-care/)** > > Men have begun to re-enter the nursing workforce at increasing rates, thriving in the workplace and breaking stereotypes in the process. > [@](#): > > The idea of male nurses is far from new. In fact, despite its modern association as a “female profession,” men have been involved in nursing for centuries. The RWJF reported that men were students at the world’s first nursing school, founded in 250 B.C. in India. They also helped care for patients in Europe during the Black Plague and treated injured soldiers on the battlefield for hundreds of years. [http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/techniques/nursing](http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/techniques/nursing) > [@](#): > > Nursing attendants are mentioned in all the classical texts, but could have been anyone, male or female. Male nurses were constantly used for public duties such as in prisons, asylums or the armed forces ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/26 "2020-03-15T22:42:24Z")
FWIW, I certainly don’t think that nurse implies female. French (at least Quebec French) is similar to what Nava said about Spanish. The words are infirmier and infirmiere. Now here is a curiosity. Everyone agrees that an actress is female, but more and more I see actor used for either males or females (and anyone in between). Waiter is another example. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Mondegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/91b2a8/32.png) [@Lord\_Mondegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Mondegreen)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2020, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/27 "2020-03-16T08:12:07Z")
Australian here. I know a nurse very well, and if he is asked what he does for a living he just says, “I’m a nurse.” I would never use the expression, “male nurse.” Nothing to do with being PC or anything like that, it just sounds weird to me. ---
**Author:** ![icantdraw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3ec8ea/32.png) [@icantdraw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/icantdraw)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2020, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/28 "2020-03-16T14:01:45Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > FWIW, I certainly don’t think that nurse implies female. French (at least Quebec French) is similar to what Nava said about Spanish. The words are infirmier and infirmiere. > > Now here is a curiosity. Everyone agrees that an actress is female, but more and more I see actor used for either males or females (and anyone in between). Waiter is another example. Also a woman can be a “hero” but a man is not a “heroine”. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2020, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/29 "2020-03-16T14:15:41Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Now here is a curiosity. Everyone agrees that an actress is female, but more and more I see actor used for either males or females (and anyone in between). Waiter is another example. > [@icantdraw](#): > > Also a woman can be a “hero” but a man is not a “heroine”. This goes hand-in-hand with the trend toward gender-neutral terms for jobs (e.g. police officer for policeman, flight attendant for stewardess) as most jobs become less exclusive to one sex or the other. I expect we will continue to see the feminine form for other job descriptions gradually decline in use over time. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2020, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/30 "2020-03-16T14:57:27Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > This goes hand-in-hand with the trend toward gender-neutral terms for jobs (e.g. police officer for policeman, flight attendant for stewardess) as most jobs become less exclusive to one sex or the other. I expect we will continue to see the feminine form for other job descriptions gradually decline in use over time. Yes, and it’s all a matter of familiarity… For me, as someone who is 49 years old, it still sounds odd and grates a bit to read/hear a woman referred to as an “actor” instead of an “actress”; but a word like “aviatrix” for a “female airplane pilot” feels very old-fashioned and archaic (usually a word today used for laughs to imply a 1920s-era style of sexism). It’d be nice if role or title terms created by appending “-man” to them were automatically gender-neutral (like with “mankind”), but invariably they were used for roles/jobs “traditionally” done by men, so I can see how women in these roles feel like they need to push for a neutral term to be the norm so people aren’t constantly surprised, with an “oh! you’re a woman!” reaction that is almost always negative. The term “Chairman” has, in my experience, successfully become “Chairperson” or more amusingly, simply “The Chair”. (Which use always makes me think of the awful song lyric from Neil Diamond’s “I Am, I Said”, where he regretfully notes that nobody heard his depressed mumbling, “not even the chair”). “Policeman” =\> “Police Officer”, OK, that has some traction… But what about “Fireman”? (Serious question, I don’t know the gender-neutral term for this - maybe because I have literally never seen a woman fire-person, while I have seen plenty of women as police officers.) And hey, what’s a man called who gives out parking tickets? A “male meter maid”? LOL ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2020, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/31 "2020-03-16T15:04:56Z")
Oh, another one is the gender and relationship neutral term “partner” for wife, husband, or spouse, but one step up from “Significant Other”, I assume, in the level of commitment. One used to simply refer to one’s “boyfriend” or “girlfriend”, or “husband” or “wife”, which I guess made people in same-gender relationships uncomfortable in revealing that detail (especially prior to SSMs being legal), giving rise to the term “partner”… Which in turn initially essentially implied a monogamous same-sex relationship (why else wouldn’t you just say “boy/girlfriend” or “husband/wife”?) until maybe the last 10 years or so, when I’ve started to see the term used generally and generically. I personally never refer to my wife as my “partner”, which I guess makes me part of the problem they’re trying to fight against, but I’m sorry, it just feels really weird and wrong to do so. Maybe because I have long referred to people I play bridge or racquetball with as my “partners”, neither of which I do or have ever done with my girlfriends/wife. The term never had a romantic or life-permanent or long-term overtone to me, and I don’t really want it to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2020, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/32 "2020-03-16T15:09:49Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > … But what about “Fireman”? (Serious question, I don’t know the gender-neutral term for this - maybe because I have literally never seen a woman fire-person, while I have seen plenty of women as police officers.) > > And hey, what’s a man called who gives out parking tickets? A “male meter maid”? LOL Firefighter Bylaw officer You seriously haven’t heard of firefighters? It’s been the defacto term for decades. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2020, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/33 "2020-03-16T15:11:13Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > And hey, what’s a man called who gives out parking tickets? A “male meter maid”? LOL Meter butler?😉 ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2020, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/34 "2020-03-16T15:16:58Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Firefighter > Bylaw officer > > You seriously haven’t heard of firefighters? It’s been the defacto term for decades. Ah, of course I have. It just didn’t come to my mind as a term for a woman in firefighting gear… Which is obviously the problem here. ☹ And… “Bylaw Officer”? Are you joking? I have never heard that term and would have no idea what it meant if I’d seen/heard it used out of the blue (here, I only know it because you told me it was the neutral term for a parking meter enforcer) Actually, the colloquial term in NYC for the latter is “Brownie”, because of the brown uniforms they wear to distinguish themselves from police or traffic officers (the uniforms otherwise look very similar). ---
**Author:** ![Ignotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecc23a/32.png) [@Ignotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignotus)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2020, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/35 "2020-03-16T15:22:50Z")
As for languages other than English, the Swedish term for a Registered Nurse is _sjuksköterska_, regardless of sex; although the word historically is grammatically female gender. Except for in Finland Swedish, where it’s called _sjukskötare_ (the corresponding male gender form). ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2020, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/36 "2020-03-16T15:34:49Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > That is, after all, Wikipedia and I think they have it wrong. Those are examples of natural gender, not grammatical gender. Wikipedia _had_ it right all along, until January 22, 2020, when some nincompoop [blundered in](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender_in_English&type=revision&diff=937001334&oldid=937001173) and changed “natural” to grammatical." Expect that to be reverted too. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2020, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/37 "2020-03-16T15:48:02Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Meter butler?😉 I think “meter maid” became popular because of the alliteration. More seriously, [Parking Enforcement Officer](https://www.criminaljusticedegreeschools.com/criminal-justice-careers/parking-enforcement-officer/) (or Parking Control Officer), although a mouthful, seems to be common as the official term. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2020, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/38 "2020-03-16T16:45:16Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > For me, as someone who is 49 years old, it still sounds odd and grates a bit to read/hear a woman referred to as an “actor” instead of an “actress”; but a word like “aviatrix” for a “female airplane pilot” feels very old-fashioned and archaic (usually a word today used for laughs to imply a 1920s-era style of sexism). “Baxter” (but not aviatrix or actress) has been deleted from the Oxford Dictionary of English, so someone must know some of those words are not being used much. > [@](#): > > It’d be nice if role or title terms created by appending “-man” to them were automatically gender-neutral (like with “mankind”), but invariably they were used for roles/jobs “traditionally” done by men… Roles/jobs like “woman”, you mean? 🙂 “Man” was AFAIK more gender-neutral (if grammatically male) in old-school English, but, sure, terms like woman (= wifmann) were grammatically male. “Wif” wasn’t feminine either; it was neuter. I wouldn’t pay too much heed to the grammatical gender of these words, which in English has not been a thing for centuries. ---
**Author:** ![Teuton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teuton/32/3864_2.png) [@Teuton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teuton)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2020, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/39 "2020-03-16T18:10:07Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I think “meter maid” became popular because of the alliteration. More seriously, [Parking Enforcement Officer](https://www.criminaljusticedegreeschools.com/criminal-justice-careers/parking-enforcement-officer/) (or Parking Control Officer), although a mouthful, seems to be common as the official term. Traffic warden? ---
**Author:** ![Ignotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecc23a/32.png) [@Ignotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignotus)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2020, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521/40 "2020-03-16T18:27:40Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I think “meter maid” became popular because of the alliteration. More seriously, [Parking Enforcement Officer](https://www.criminaljusticedegreeschools.com/criminal-justice-careers/parking-enforcement-officer/) (or Parking Control Officer), although a mouthful, seems to be common as the official term. A bit of a side thread, but there’s a parallell in Swedish. The common term _lapplisa_ probably became popular because of alliteration. As \*Lisa \*is a female name, it seemed appropriate at a time when most _parkeringsvakter_ in Sweden were female (to the best of my knowledge, they might still be!) The obvious male counterpart would be a _lapplasse_. For some reason though, that never really has caught on! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-nurses-in-other-countries/849521.md?page=3)