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Essay on Minorities in Professions
During 1850 to 1950, black nurses and teachers in the United States have been simultaneously oppressed by racism, classism and patriarchy. In United States, gender and class historically have been racialized in both nursing and teaching. For instance, the exclusion of black women from nursing before the late 1920s was rationalized by ideological constructions of racially specific femininity and sexuality, representing the opposite models of white, middle-class womanhood. Nurses and teachers wanted to protect their elite position; these professions relied on the image of feminine respectability and gentility. Thus, until the post-World War II period, racial minority women were excluded from nursing and teaching.
When racial minority women were allowed into nursing and teaching, they were initially, encouraged to pursue nursing and teaching only to serve "their" communities. Racial minority nurses and nursing assistants have helped to maintain a segmented nursing labor force that was initially based on class.Perceiving black women and men as inferior, undesirable and likely to create permanent economic, social and race relations problems, immigration officials sought to avoid the problem by restricting entry to those whose services were in urgent demand, and only when sources of white labor were unavailable. There were other economic and political considerations. With specific reference to nurses, the process of racialization and the ideologies of racism and sexism played a key role in the state's decision to admit a small number of Caribbean nurses and teachers as "cases of exceptional merit" (i.e., workers whose services were in urgent demand) between 1892 and 1952 to appease Caribbean, women and men.
Black nurses (like other professional and skilled black workers) were expected to "contribute appreciably to the social, economic or cultural life and to help in making blacks "acceptable to the American population" (Brand, 1988).Racism interacts with sexism and class exploitation in the labor market.......
