Doing ‘women’s work’? Men, masculinity and caring

This chapter explores the issues concerning men working in the human services. It provides an area that has traditionally been seen as women’s work and there has been a significant gendered pattern of employment. The human services include areas such as nursing, teaching, social work, psychology and the myriad of allied health professions and social welfare paraprofessionals. Men care, and recognition of that is important for men working in the human services. The challenge for men at present is to work closely in partnership with feminists and to be self-reflective. The feminist analysis is extremely powerful in its explanation of this gendered separation of caring work into the managing and allocating of resources on the one hand and the provision of the actual care services. The notion of the ‘caring’ professions, and of caring itself, produces a powerful discourse, which creates images of love, affection, self-sacrifice and intimacy.