Nursing and stereotypes

Nurses comprise the largest group of healthcare providers (Auerbach, Staiger, Muench, & Buerhaus, 2013), and a strong and resilient nursing workforce is crucial to effective healthcare delivery (Price, McGillis Hall, Angus, & Peter, 2013). However, nursing is an activity that is affected by myth and stereotyping (Jinks & Bradley, 2004) and whilst largely a female dominated profession (Dubrosky, 2013; Hardie, 2015; Solbrække, Solvoll, & Heggen, 2013) public images often stereotype the nurse as a woman (Kelly, Fealy, & Watson, 2012), with male students sometimes being questioned about why they would choose nursing as a career (O’Brien, Mooney, & Glacken, 2008). Nursing is still viewed by some as being more a vocation than a career (Rowlinson, 2013) and this may be related to nursing’s origins which were gendered and viewed as class-bound domestic work (Kelly et al., 2012). Stereotypes of nurses such as angels or handmaidens exemplify the effect of mythology (Jinks & Bradley, 2004; Kalisch & Kalisch, 1987).