Nurse stereotypes

A woman wearing a "hot nurse" outfit displays the stereotype of sexualized female nurses

The profession of nursing is stereotyped. Nurses are commonly expected to be female and so male nurses are often stereotyped as effeminate. In forms of low humour such as get-well cards, nurses are commonly portrayed as bimbos and, in medical drama and novels, nurses are commonly portrayed as young, female, single, childless and white. Studies have identified several such popular stereotypes including:

1. Handmaiden – the female assistant of a physician, who is usually portrayed as male. Handmaidens are depicted without an independent knowledge base of their own—knowing only a tiny subset of what physicians know and following all physician commands.
2. Naughty nurse, sex symbol or nymphomaniac
3. Bimbo or airhead, exemplified by Betty Sizemore in Nurse Betty
4. Angel, exemplified by the popular accounts of Florence Nightingale – The Lady with the Lamp
5. Battleaxe, torturer or harridan, exemplified by Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or Annie Wilkes from Misery
6. Homosexual male
7. Alcoholic, exemplified by Sarah Gamp in Martin Chuzzlewit
8. Buffoon or klutz, exemplified by Greg Focker in Meet the Parents
9. Woman in White

Angel as a model nurse

The lady with the lamp — Miss Nightingale at Scutari in 1854 painted by Henrietta Rae

The image of a nurse as a ministering angel was promoted in the 19th century as a counter to the then image of a nurse as a dissolute drunk, exemplified by Dickens' Sarah Gamp. The model nurse in this image was moral, noble and religious, like a devout nun — chaste and abstemious — rather than an unpleasant witch. Her skills would be practical and her demeanour would be stoic and obedient. Florence Nightingale promoted this image because, at the time, the idea of having female nurses attending the British army fighting the Crimean war was controversial, being thought immoral and revolutionary.

See also

• History of nursing
• List of fictional nurses
• Nurse paintings

Further reading

• 9780199337064