[emodendroket]

The profession is in reality overwhelmingly female, and it is associated with women in basically the entire world. Even from a linguistic perspective, the origins of the English word is gendered (the association with wet nurses is unmistakably feminine), and similar phenomenon happen in other languages. It's no longer considered the polite word to use, but if you read moderately old Japanese texts you'll find nurses referred to as "kangohu," no longer preferred because the "hu" part specifically means "woman." I'm sure if we did a survey of more world languages we'd find other hints. Even high-minded economic writing will describe it as "pink-collar" work. You could quite sensibly argue that it should be otherwise but the world is not as we might wish it were.