MEN IN WOMEN’ S WORLD
These days we often hear of career women making their way in a man’ s world— but what of the men doing‘ women’ s work’? Men could now be seen in doing jobs known to be women’ s job, for instance nurse and midwives, whenever these two words are mention everybody thinks about women especially midwifery is traditionally seen as the care of pregnant women by women but in today’ s world it’ s different case.
According to a research I did on male midwives, literally men started getting involved with the care of pregnant women, from the 16th Century and this was the time the term " man-midwife " started to be used. The Medical Acts of 1858 and 1886 consolidated the position of the " man-midwife ", who became the forerunners of the obstetric specialist.
The first midwives Act started in 1902 when the Female practitioners gained legal recognition. This prohibited the practice of midwifery by unqualified women, but unqualified men could still practice. This loophole was closed in 1926.
The Midwives Act of 1952 prohibited men from training and practicing as midwives. Despite this Act man still have the courage to help out pregnant women as well as female mid wives, as in the late 1960s and early 1970s some number of male nurses began challenging the idea that men cannot be midwives.
After their challenges and persistent they were fortunate that an amendment to the bill to remove the barriers to men entering midwifery, providing certain restrictions were abided by, as well as two midwifery schools were allocated to the training of male midwifes, which were to be monitored to ascertain the suitability of men as midwives.
After completing the whole research, I came to a conclusion that it really took male midwives a long way to get to where they are today, but the big question here is, do society respect and value them as much, or are their efforts appreciated by people regardless of their religions and cultural backgrounds? Below are the opinions I gathered from various people I spoke with including a male nurse. cont..
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