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Comment by bluefirebrand | Hacker News Reader

I have been wondering how long it would start to take before historically female roles would start courting men the way STEM has been courting women the last couple of decades

After years of "why are men dropping out of the workforce" articles it seems we finally are seeing some people come to their senses that yes, you do actually still have to "court" men to enter different careers to make it seem like appealing work for them to do

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These kinds of programs have existed for decades. You've been wondering about that not because these programs weren't there but because you weren't looking for them.

There are a lot of good reasons why we want more men in nursing. For personal reasons some patients may respond better to interactions with men. Additionally men being on average larger and stronger then women is an advantage in a society with many overweight and obese people.

> You've been wondering about that not because these programs weren't there but because you weren't looking for them

I wasn't looking for grants as a woman in compsci either, but I sure heard about those

> There are a lot of good reasons why we want more men in nursing.

I never disputed or questioned that

I worked at a hospital delivering food and I also went to school for CS and I heard about both opportunities to draw men to nursing and women to compsci.

The reason that you didn’t hear about them was that you weren’t looking in that area.

> The reason that you didn’t hear about them was that you weren’t looking in that area

The purpose of advertising is to reach people who aren't looking at a specific area.

I think schools have been courting male teachers for quite a while now.

And according to the article, this courting of male nurses has also been going on for many years.

Yep, can confirm. I was aggressively recruited for education as a math undergrad. There was no way that was going to happen, too many people view male teachers as inherently predatory.

> I was aggressively recruited for education as a math undergrad.

Was it because you were male or because you were studying math? Many schools struggle to find good math teachers; it's one of the qualifications in perpetual shortage.

Both.

> too many people view male teachers as inherently predatory.

I absolutely hate this. It's the same in every field in contact with kids. When I was a youth camp counsellor, a director told me after stuff happened with other counsellors "at least now, I'm sure you are not a predator" (translation here). I know it was a joke, but the place and the way makes are sometimes seen in the field genuinely hit me hard. I remember the sentence and the director face as she said it better than the other counsellors and the overall situation.

Kind of weird you guys are being down-voted. This is absolutely true. I volunteered at the local Boys and Girls club for years and there was always a vibe when any new person or parent came in. Over 30 male working with kids always raises eyebrows. It sucks but it's also reality.

Maybe!

Could be just me, confirmation bias or whatever but around 2010-2020 it felt like you couldn't go two minutes with tripping over a "we need more women in STEM" article but this is the first I feel I'm ever seeing about "we need more male nurses"

And male teachers have always felt fairly plentiful starting around high school levels to me, and going into university. Not in primary school, but people don't seem to trust adult men around children as a rule so that might be why

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