Nursing as a Gendered Profession: Exploring the Lived Experience of Female Nurses

Abstract

This study explores the concept nursing as a gendered profession and lived experiences of nurses. It explains the challenges they have been faced while choosing and persuading nursing as a profession. Along with that how nurses deals with the issues and challenges that they have been experiencing at work place in detail. This study explores how the profession of nursing is being stigmatized by the society and shaped the perception of people according to that. An anthropological qualitative method was used for data collection. In qualitative methods such as purposive sampling, snowball sampling, in-depth interviews have been used to understand the true picture of Nurses along with their professional image. Socio cultural challenges that are being faced by nurses as they have family and societal pressure while choosing nursing as a profession due to lack of decision making authority. Finding shows that Society makes a contribution in shaping negative image of nursing as according to them it is a low status profession which has no future and nurses who belong to this profession are characterless because they have interaction with males. For that reason, nurses are being stigmatized which interdict them from joining the nursing profession. Further more patients have good perception regarding nursing after interaction as before that they perceived nursing as unacceptable profession but once they get an experience with them they recommended and give more respect to nurses.