Professionalizing and masculinizing a female occupation: The reconceptualization of hospital administration in the early 1900s

Abstract

This paper examines the earliest boundary work for a female-dominated occupation that portrayed men rather than women as the appropriate practitioners. According to the concept of gender primacy, men would not enter a female-dominated occupation in large numbers because it is associated with gender essentialism. Hospital administration is one of the rare female occupations that did masculinize. Our analysis of archival texts on hospital administration in the early 1900s describes that in establishing a jurisdiction, body of knowledge, and educational requirements, the male-dominated professional association created a male sex boundary. Extracting and elaborating functions consistent with gender primacy and sloughing off functions associated with gender essentialism reframed the occupation as male. Rhetorical use of gender created a male image of the generic practitioner and the occupation, while an internal boundary segregated women within the occupation. The study points to differences in how occupations feminize and masculinize and suggests the latter does not occur solely in response to societal factors, as has been assumed, but can originate within the occupation. © 2005 by Johnson Graduate School, Cornell University.