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by ogogmad 9 days ago
I think we should create a masculine-sounding word for "nurse", like "(patient/care) (guardian/maintainer/technician)". Nursing still sounds like breastfeeding (check the etymology!), which I'd reckon sounds offputting to most men.

Neologisms are cringe, but demeaning men is as well.

6 comments

This is a nice idea but I think practically the shift will come not from instituting gender-affirming nomenclature but rather redefining male biases.

The idea of being involved in an important (and historically female) profession dedicated to compassionate care should be received as honorable by men irrespective of the job title's femininity. I disagree that it's demeaning.

I think what would help a lot would be a strong male nurse as a lead in a medical television drama. We've had strong male nurses in secondary characters, but not as leads or co-leads.

A sexy male nurse should appeal quite strongly to the traditional medical drama audience; it'd let a studio follow the traditional formula but be enough of a change that it's not a rehash.

That's likely what people will still call them, regardless of the neologism. I am not opposed to the neologism, but like most, it will be really hard to agree on a single one so we should continue to use "nurse" and ignore its etymology meanwhile.
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"Patient Care Technician" is already a thing, it's a level under nurse
I've been calling sports physios "body mechanics" for quite awhile now. A much more appealing term, IMO, and it cuts to the heart of what the job is about.
Emergency department Tech is already a job