Conformity to Traditional Gender Norms in a Feminized Occupation:The Influence on Health Behaviors

The object of this study is to examine the relationships between conformity to traditional gender norms and health in a special group of the Spanish population, male/female nurses. Nursing is a particularly good example of feminized occupation. Spanish male (n = 98) and female (n = 98) nurses matched in diverse sociodemographic variables complete measures of gender norms and health behavior variables. Measures of conformity to gender norms in female and male nurses are compared with those of the general population. The analysis of the inter-gender relationships and health highlights a clearly masculine pattern for men and a clearly feminine one for women. A detailed analysis of the scores in each of the scales reveals a pattern of illness in male nurses that is still masculine despite their lower conformity, as a group, to masculine norms, and a clearly feminine illness pattern in female nurses. The consideration of gender from a multidimensional perspective (the different factors that make up Masculinity and Femininity, as assessed in this work) has allowed us to study the relations between gender norms and health in more detail. Limitations and implications are discussed.

Breast Cancer Paradox: High Curability versus High Mortality from a Gender Perspective

Despite being considered a potentially curable disease, breast cancer is the most frequent cause of cancer death in women worldwide, establishing the following paradox: high curability versus high mortality. Among the conditions conducive to this situation, such as difficult access to diagnosis and treatment and social support by the State, there is the need to discuss the impact of women’s caregiving, the backbone of the female gender role, on self-care in health. Gender has a powerful effect on determining health status: it may limit different rates of exposure to certain risks, different patterns in the quest for treatment or differential impacts of the social and economic determinants of health. The study shows the results of a qualitative methodology with nine women aged 48 to 74 years with varying levels of schooling and socioeconomic status, who had breast cancer at some stage of adult life and who regularly attend a nongovernmental organization (NGO) to support women with breast cancer, in the city of Niterói (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). The participants’ discourses evidenced the idea of the primacy of the caregiving, the idealized image of the warrior woman and their self-neglect and State’s care as elements of the potential impact on the choices of these women concerning self-care, and consequently in their experiences of illness.

Occupational Stress versus Cortisol Associated with Psychological Variables and Gender Differences among Women and Men in Nursing

The present research focused on a sample of Spanish male and female nurses to determine whether psychological variables are related to occupational stress and cortisol. Spanish male (n = 98) and female (n = 98) nurses, matched in diverse sociodemographic variables, completed measures of occupational stress, cortisol 8 am (8 h), and cortisol 8 pm (20 h), and psychological variables. Multivariable regression analyses revealed different patterns of association among the variables when analyzing subjective and (occupational stress) objective indicators (cortisol at 8 h and cortisol at 20 h). In male nurses, higher stress is related to worse self-perceived health, worse mental health, less cortisol measured at 8 h, and more morningness. For the female nurses, higher stress is related to being younger, worse self-perceived health, and less job satisfaction. The only similarities found in the target variables and the measures of stress studied in the groups of males and females are worse self-perceived health and worse mental health associated with more occupational stress.