In a world that seems increasingly determined to leave gender biases behind (thankfully), it can be jarring when we see blatant, casual sexism. We all know that every classroom, playground, and even job field is loaded with gender-based stereotypes, but perhaps none so much as the medical industry. For a long time, it was believed that women could only be nurses while men got to be doctors — never the other way around.
Although today that couldn't be further from the truth, as there are many successful female doctors and male nurses, the assigned gender roles that come with the job are still prevalent. And when this viral photo surfaced of a young girl and boy holding hands and walking down a hospital hallway, that point was proven even further.
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Medical Shots, a Twitter account with a nearly 240K followers, regularly posts health-related content and recently shared this photo.
The little girl is wearing pink scrubs with the saying “Nurse in Training” on the back, whereas the little boy’s green scrubs read “Doctor in Training.”
The account simply captioned the photo "This is cute, isn't it?" with a heart-eyes emoji.
Almost the entire internet disagreed.
In fact, many folks found the image to be overtly sexist and demoralizing.
Not only did many point out that it was offensive to women, but a few noted how offensive it is to men and male nurses.
Being a nurse requires an incredible amount of strength and compassion — it is in no way a "lesser" position to hold — and it certainly isn't a job only one gender can do.
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Some even pointed out the deeper stereotyping issues this simple image presents.
It's a whole mess of confusion and ignorance.
All in all, the photo made everybody cringe.
But it also did open up the dialogue around sexism in the health industry. Doctors don't equate to men in the same way that doctors aren't better than nurses. No matter which gender and which field of the health care system, all options are valid — let's stop putting our kids in boxes.
