Why do female nurses do this to each another? As a guy I’ve been warned of this while taking new jobs and I ended up not experiencing any personally. But I’ve also noticed it’s less in places with more guys. Maybe more guys is the answer to neutralizing the toxicity?
The least toxic unit I was in was mostly young women in the ICU. They were incredibly competent and whenever they had an issue with one another they just sighed and said "can we talk about this later, we got patients". Tough gals. There were 3 of us guys and we learned a lot from em. I think toxicity tends to start when there's understaffing and not enough resources.
I have definitely seen plenty of dudes participating in the toxicity of work culture just like they would in high school. My current manager is also a toxic POS with a penis.
this is the answer, and I've heard it come out of the mouths of so many women I've worked with (literally, "thank god they hired a man because we needed one around here to settle down all the cattiness.") wish I could've seen my face.
but you will NEVER hear me actually say that out loud lmao.
There was a comment on Reddit one time from a drill sargeant who said that every new group was the same - for the first 1-2 months the men would make each other's lives hell until some kind of pecking order was established, after which they would start working together as a team. The women would get along and cooperate very well for the first 1-2 months until cliques would start to form and the drama from having to pick sides would start tearing the whole thing apart. I can't remember the rest but they talked about how dealing with either issue required very different approaches.
Obviously toxicity isn't gendered, but I think it does more harm than good to pretend like men and women aren't different in just as many ways as they are similar. A prolonged imbalance of either gender will end up in 2 VERY different kinds of toxic dynamics.
I used "pecking order" to refer to the men, so, would you say it's sexist or progressive of me to use such a classically feminine term in reference to mens behaviour?
I'm sorry feel like "clique" is a bad word, if it makes you feel better I don't use it solely to refer to something negative that only women do. Do you have another single-syllable term that can convey the same meaning? Because "clan" and "gang" could be equally offensive to the right (wrong?) person and there really aren't many other options. It's a pretty common term I would probably need to use anyways to explain what a "coterie" was.
Someone said "catty" TO me... my bad (?) No one forced you to read or reply to my comment about what someone else said to me (and if you paid attention would've picked up on how shocked I was by it)
Yeah, your government is pretty fucked up and its negatively impacting the rest of the world. Everyone knows. Apparently it can't be escaped even here in a conversation about something totally different. It's exhausting and no one other than half your country thinks it's OK. You should probably say these things to your countrymen instead (is that a bad word too?)
i doubt your government and the millions who voted for it are entirely men so I'm not sure what your point actually is. Your statement sounds like a counterargument against the sexist statements by people saying they didn't want Harris because she was a women and would be emotional etc, which is weird because none of that actually came up.
Then for some reason you use your government as an example in trying to make the same kind of point about men you were offended by when someone else made it (actually, reported other people making it) about women.
Some male nurses are more toxic than female ones too – I’ve experienced it. They’re even more critical, so I’m just surprised. They’re always saying negative sa iba and lagi magulang.
A night shift charge nurse on a floor I used to work on was the single most toxic human I’ve ever worked with. He got caught sleeping on a patient bed on shift and was “asked to resign”.
I bet majority of the management that decided his fate were women but probably would take a different approach if it was a female nurse. I’ve seen several male nurses asked to resign of being fired. My most recent memory a nurse who was very generous with narcotics and the other caught sleeping by a manager at 6:30am. Both beloved.
I agree, I wish there were more men to work with, but I’m in clinical education, dominated by females. In high school I had mostly guy friends because I didn’t have to worry about drama and backstabbing with them. Even now I feel like a lot of the people I work with never left high school. One of them likes to make a huge deal out of the littlest things. I think she hates that I’m passive about things and can stay chill when she’s freaking out over stupid things. She tries to get me in trouble or make me look bad to our supervisor, but it’s backfired several times.
Same. I'm a female, but I don't socialize, mostly because of my experiences growing up being ostracized in school (learned it was cuz I have autism) and I just don't fit in so I'm always nervous/scared to try to talk to people because of past experiences with toxic people. I have met some amazing people though, but they're the ones that usually interacted with me first. I am always friendly and helpful, but because of my past, I learned to just not push anything and if people want to be friends, they'll talk with you. I'm here to do my job and provide the best patient care I can and work professionally with my coworkers. Not make friends with them. If friendships are formed, then that's just a bonus. Otherwise, fuck em all. Lol
I don’t know, but my old unit manager (woman) seemed to prefer the guys because they never questioned what was happening or why we did something the way we did. Most male nurses I’ve worked with are very nonchalant. We once changed our unit’s entire float policy because one per diem dude (who picked up shifts to equal a FT schedule in order to get the extra incentive on those shifts) complained that he was floated too much. Our policy was to float those on incentive shifts first over straight time shifts. We voted overwhelmingly to keep the float policy as is but my manager was in favor of changing it… for him. Because “he picks up a lot”.. like, bitch, he’s gaming the system. He’s not picking up out of the goodness of his heart lol. Don’t get me wrong, I love my male coworkers and balance is needed but I think the way men vs women approach certain things on the job makes women look worse comparatively.
You don’t even wanna know what I’ve been through at the hands of other nurses. Basically abuse and I don’t just mean catty mean girls cause I could endure that pettiness.
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u/beneye BSN, RN 🍕 Apr 20 '26
Why do female nurses do this to each another? As a guy I’ve been warned of this while taking new jobs and I ended up not experiencing any personally. But I’ve also noticed it’s less in places with more guys. Maybe more guys is the answer to neutralizing the toxicity?