Mascara & Monsters

“Mean girls all go into social work!”

“The mean girl to teacher pipeline!”

Y’all, these are just pink collar jobs. The reason you think there’s so many “mean girls” in these fields is because they’re all like 97% women. Of course some of them are gonna be assholes. There’s assholes everywhere.

While those are all “helper” professions and they very much are pink collar (and are underpaid, that’s not an incompatible idea), they’re also ones that involve power over vulnerable people’s lives. (And I’ve only encountered it as a comparison to, say, male bullies becoming cops, it’s not like men aren’t being mentioned here.)

Secretaries/administrative assistants aren’t on that list for a reason. Flight attendants aren’t on that list. Housecleaners aren’t on that list. Receptionists. Customer service representatives. Dental hygienists. The people who style hair or do nails. That’s not a list of pink collar jobs. It’s specifically (pink collar) positions where if you want to abuse people you’re relatively likely to get away with it.

It can both be true that “nurses who care for disabled people need better pay” and “nurses who care for disabled people have a lot of opportunities to abuse their power and that’s something worth talking about.”

Women aren’t immune from treating people badly because they’re women, or because women are underpaid. They’re sure not immune from specifically seeking out jobs that will allow them to be cruel without any consequences to them, if they get personal satisfaction out of being cruel.

There have been a lot of studies about hazing and abuse in nursing communities and even murder!

My mother is a nurse, her co-workers sit around laughing about the people who fall out of their wheel chairs, about the nurses who do cry when someone dies, my mother has ignored patients crying out in pain in order to drink her coffee.

My mother has intentionally let elderly patients at her nursing home die. She has abused them and she has laughed about it. She has left people suffering and has caused that suffering.

Nurses are underpaid and they are disrespected as medical professionals who aren’t a doctor. That’s true and we should talk about that, but we can not ignore the fact that violent women seek out these jobs with God Complexes and the intent to do harm.

Sure, that harm might be because they are bitter, over-worked, and disrespected. None the less, it is no different than when a male doctor causes purposeful harm to his patient.

Nurses contribute to eugenics, to patient abuse, elder abuse, and yeah even child abuse (my mother was proficient in all of them!)

Here are some important articles to read:

Nurses Eat Their Young An article about hazing and bullying among nurses. The title comes from a common saying in medical circles, the first time I heard it, it was in reference to my mother’s best friend who had poured coffee over the hands of a new nurse who had reported another nurse to a superior for abusing a patient.

Bullying in Nursing – Why The Hazing is Getting Worse A brief article on forms of hazing.

Nurse hazing: a costly reality

Why do nurses abuse patients? Reflections from South African obstetric services

Patients’ lives being left at mercy of abusive nurses

OVER THE GARDEN WALL + DETAILS 🍁🎃🍂

Led through the mist, by the milk-light of moon, all that was lost, is revealed. Our long bygone burdens, mere echoes of the spring, but where have we come, and where shall we end? If dreams can’t come true, then why not pretend? How the gentle wind, beckons through the leaves, as autumn colors fall.