Our executive director's letter to the heart-related restaurants on their use of the naughty nurse stereotype. (Our petiiton is now closed)
Dear Heart-Related Restaurant Owners:
As you know, both of your restaurants include waitresses dressed as naughty nurses, reinforcing a tired stereotype of female sexuality that undermines real nurses' claims to adequate respect and resources. We urge you--especially Mr. Lena, a real-life paramedic--to find some way to make money without portraying nurses as bimbos.
We understand that the "nurse" outfits are "just a joke" and that you are not suggesting that most nurses really dress or act this way at work. But even "jokes" can have an important effect on how people view the world, which is why they are among the most common ways that ugly stereotypes are spread and reinforced.
Naughty nurse imagery hurts real nurses because it reduces the profession to a tired sex joke and associates it with half-dressed young women, relentlessly equating one struggling profession with female sexuality. That isn't exactly the type of image that's going to encourage men to become nurses. Nor will it motivate decision-makers to allocate scarce resources in an economically distressed era in which nurses struggle to get the help they need.
Studies have shown that the way nurses are portrayed in pop culture products affects how people think and act. Just recently, a Dundee University (Scotland) study found that stereotypical television images of nurses as "brainless, sex mad bimbos" were discouraging academically advanced primary school students from pursuing the profession.
Undermining nursing puts lives at risk, since real nurses are professionals with advanced clinical skills that often make the difference between life and death. We don't object to the naughty. We object to the naughty nurse. You might consider simply changing the theme of your wait staff's costumes to sexy angels
