Why tho? More so why are they pushing now of all times? Just seems odd to me they are pushing for such a thing now of all times. Mostly because today's gender politics is focus on women and them lacking in white collar male dominated areas.
Why are we making a push to get women into stem? Same reasons I guess. Diversity.
Gender speaking there is a huge preference from both genders to have same sex care givers. I have a male doc. My wife has a female doc. This isn't uncommon.
You can't legally better one sex at the cost of the other. So AA and EO hiring apply both ways. Historically it works in women's favor. Nursing is a field where guys will get preferential treatment in the hiring process at least. We also have http://aamn.org/ and don't get attacked for it.
That is putting it mildly. Last I check men made up at most 9% of nurses, and the growth rate is slower than a turtle. Least to say if they want more men in nursing they have one hell of an issue to take on.
It is growing but slowly. They are changing the textbooks. They are now more general neutral in language and show guys in them.
Where there is discrimination, sexism, etc etc. It may not be as harsh or severe but I bet its why men are dropping out.
There is posts in /r/studentnurse where guys in OB were told to like sit in rooms and they had policies where they had to be followed by women. Females didn't have the same policy. Again varies by school. That said due to the fact one accusation could ruin a guy I always welcomed more people in the room. It just should not be policy and if it is it has to apply equally to both genders. We got enough issues in nursing school without it being implied we get off on cleaning up fecal matter and touching girls privates. You ever seen what a 300 pound adult can do when they have a diaper blow out? There is shit everywhere both front and back. If they get a UTI it could end up killing them.
Where there is discrimination, sexism, etc etc. It may not be as harsh or severe but I bet its why men are dropping out.
There isn't one part of me that thinks what guys experience in nursing school is even close to what women experience in school in stem majors but I could be wrong. Outside of the school system I think it probably is more equal in the barriers we face.
I also bet its due to the total lack of support and outreach programs for men in nursing. Meaning they don't have places to go to for help or for support, like women do in terms of STEM majors.
Again it is starting to change. They are trying to get 20% by 20. I've seen several schools talk about how diverse they are. As it stands right now as a guy I think your success or failure in nursing school will depend greatly on where you attend. I chose wrong but I didn't know about all this until it was to late.