Preprint / Version 1

Malayalee Nurses and Health Care

Some reflections on Challenges and Stereotypes

##article.authors##

  • Binumol Abraham Assistant Professor in History Assumption College Autonomous Changanasserry, Kottayam, Kerala Ph: +919037666961

Keywords:

Gender, Social Status, Empowerment, Pandemic, Stereotypes

Abstract

The proposed research tries to understand the complexity of nursing as a professionalong with the attendant questions of caste, gender, religion, social status and empowerment of the nursing professionals in the context of the unique development experience of Kerala. Representations on mainstream and social media have brought out supportive and negative images of nurses which have directly influenced the pattern of migration, career option and working conditions of nurses in Kerala, in major cities in India and abroad. During the crisis situations such as war and pandemic, the nursing workforce faced an unprecedented challenge professionally, socially, economically, and psychologically. Media highlighted and praised the Malayalee nurse‟s timely intervention to save the COVID-19 positive patients, and their positive traits are always associated with the image of Florence Nightingale and her qualities of care. On the contrary, nursing as a profession for women was continued to be stigmatized in literature, media and cinema, and nurses were often considered sexually decadent. The present study is an attempt to problematize the contradictory and ambiguous images that the nursing professionals are forced to carry even when they are considered as an „empowered‟ group who had achieved upward mobility and were one of the key stakeholders of healthcare.

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Posted

2022-04-27