nursingforsocialjustice

This week I attended a Harm Reduction conference in Edmonton, AB. I started off optimistic, hopeful, transitioned to moments of feeling discouraged, but also felt invigorated as sparks of new ideas were ignited. But, I ultimately left feeling sad, a bit disillusioned and kind of lost. I left feeling shitty…mostly because I felt like I was again reminded that, as a Registered Nurse, though I am appreciated, perhaps even valued, I am also misunderstood, and equated more to a caregiver or caretaker rather than a knowledgeable discipline. I am lumped into a faceless system of health care that oppresses, objectifies and stigmatizes. And this makes my guts wrench, because, I am solid in my personal nursing philosophy and have worked so hard to maintain not just a reflective practice, but a reflexive practice to work through the million existential crises that I have about the mismatch that my nursing values have with the health care system that they live in. And I feel sad, so, so sad, that the more aware I am the more I realize my oppression, the oppression that I experience a as a woman, as a woman in a woman dominated profession, and as a nurse that has been struggling for more than a century to move beyond this.

I feel like it is at the most unsuspecting times, and by the most unsuspecting groups that this happens. And I realize, some of this is my own stuff, my own desire to empower and emancipate my profession and discipline, but I feel like at some point, the many groups of the oppressed need to come together than do kindness and compassion rather than devaluing each other. When do we start building bridges? Is there any difference between a conference where people talk about how smart they are and one where people talk about how shitty the world is? Is that my bias? Is it a nursing bias? Am I overly protective of my profession? Territorial even? I am having more and more trouble distinguishing what is my own stuff and what is not. Is this the sick role? Is this empowerment or a façade of agency?

I know more. I see more. I see this so much more, now that I know more, more about the history of nursing, more about the feminist lens, more about myself, ore about nursing theory, because I can see how not far at all we have come from the early 1900s, when we had to fight to even be recognized as something more than a handmaiden of a physician or natural extension of an informal caregiver role. I am even more saddened because I was actively oppressed by a group that is also oppressed. I am on the side of harm reduction, and social justice. I am on the side of feminism. And I felt terrible, leaving that conference defeated, and confused about what was actually accomplished and what the purpose of gathering was. Is it a forum to unite and bad-mouth vilified groups? I don’t get it. Shouldn’t we be aligning instead of alienating? And I know some of this is my stuff, that I have to reflect on. But, isn’t it weird to say that you are coming from a place of kindness and inclusion and then meet genuine curiosity with anger? I don’t get it. I don’t understand how you achieve a goal of helping people understand and building allies but continually feeding the idea that nothing will change. Is one year a long time? Is 5 years a long time? Is 100 years a long time?

The intention was to end on a place of hope…but it didn’t. And so, I am not sure what was achieved…a forum to share and a forum for empathy, idea exchange perhaps.

Peace,

Michelle D.