<p>Ben Cochran, a male nursing student in his final year at East Carolina University, has set off a firestorm of controversy with his letter to the editor of the school’s paper in which he engaged in a misogynistic ranted over female student’s use of the school clinic to obtain birth control. He apparently feels they are equivalent to prostitutes, and have no business availing themselves of student health services to obtain the pill.</p>
<p>However, the original, unedited copy of the letter remains on the internet for eternity, and is available for all to read. A link to this original version is posted in the Allnurses.com site (the first link in this post). If you decide to go there, be warned that it is uses some extremely offensive language. </p>
<p>Should a male nursing student, who holds such animus against women and their right to birth control be given a license to nurse patients in a clinical setting? I rather doubt the school can deny him a nursing degree if he passes all required course studies, but should he pass his licensing boards, would you hire him? For myself, I can answer that question with a resounding, NO!</p>
<p>This one had made it out to my far-from-nursing circles. Given that he was waiting to be treated for congestion due to a cold, the most trenchant comment I read was,</p>
<p>“Also, although I am not a doctor, I think I can provide a diagnosis of his respiratory troubles: he’s a snotty god-damned brat.”</p>
<p>After reading the first two paragraphs of his original spiel, I’m already appalled at the idea of this dolt ever becoming a certified nurse.</p>
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<p>Surely a nursing student should realize that birth control 1. can be used for many things other than actual birth control, like period regulation, maintenance of hormonal balance, and even skin care, and 2. birth control pills are taken daily, so women on birth control do need large quantities of them?</p>
<p>Other than that, he’s a repulsive evolutionary holdover and should never be allowed anywhere near women’s bodies in a professional capacity (and if there’s any justice in the world, he won’t ever get anywhere near a female human being in any other context either).</p>
<p>Well Ghostt, if you couldn’t even finish reading the guy’s rant before stopping to post an outraged response, how apoplectic did you become once you reached the end? I was seeing red by the time I got to that point! What a jerk!</p>
<p>I am simply stunned at the terms he uses to describe female body parts. They are so violent and so vile. I’ve never heard them before. Is the term “hatchet wound” in general use? The mind simply boggles. I sincerely hope that he never has the opportunity to approach any female in a medical capacity. And frankly I fear for his potential for violence against women. </p>
<p>I was shocked by the unedited article as well. That’s a scary, scary level of misogyny. I hope he is convinced/compelled to transfer out of the nursing program.</p>
<p>Scroll down a bit to read it. He apologizes for his word choice: "I cannot believe I said “conscientious” when I really meant “conscious,” among other things. " He does not apologize for use of terms such as “hatchet wounds”, “gaping holes”, “sluts” etc. But boy, he’s really sorry about the whole conscientious/conscious thing. What a faux pas!</p>
<p>Okay, sorry, but I have to laugh at this. Spare the politically correct indignant righteousness and look at what he was doing…going on a deliberate hyperbolic rant to stir up controversy and gain attention. And it obviously worked! Kinda like what Stephen Colbert does to entertain (albeit a bit more discreetly).</p>
<p>Really, I think this kind of thing has to be appreciated for the silliness it contains. I mean does anybody really think this is the start of a movement?</p>
<p>In his follow-up he admits his intent of provocation. His sarcasm in “the apology” for his word choice just continues in that line.</p>
<p>Going on a public, hate-filled misogynistic rant (and demonstrating a lack of knowledge of how hormonal birth control works) is not a wise choice for a student nurse. If he were deliberately creating controversy, he has succeeded, but his future employability may be at risk. I don’t think that was his goal.</p>
<p>His “apology” is obvious BS. If his actual goal had been to stir up debate on a substantive issue–whether student health services should provide birth control–he could easily have done so without the display of vicious, disgusting language. If fact, his “word choice” displayed a deeply disturbed mind, IMHO, and “political correctness” has NOTHING to do with my reaction to it.</p>
Here are the classic elements of a heartfelt apology: take responsibility/ownership of the original deed, address the person(s) who may have been hurt, acknowledge and express regret for causing them pain, ask them for forgiveness, promise not to repeat the same action. </p>
<p>I didn’t see those elements in his “heartfelt apology.” I saw a glorification of his original action. He rationalizes it as provocative journalism. He thinks he was just doing his job super-well because people got upset.</p>
<p>What we have here is a young man who, in his barely post-adolescent hubris, thought he was being provocative and labored under the misapprehension that he could say, “Just kidding!” afterward without lasting consequences.</p>
<p>What he inadvertently revealed was not his misogyny—the fact that he knows those words and can use them to provoke a reaction does not automatically mean that he hates women—but his immaturity.</p>
<p>In other words, he doesn’t actually hate women. He’s just young and stupid, with stunted attitudes toward sex and perhaps even his own sexuality, which he unconsciously displays in his so-called humor.</p>
<p>But to whom has he caused this “pain” exactly? I am woman (consider myself a strong feminist) with two college-aged daughters who use their student health services for such purposes and who would, I am quite sure, just roll their eyes at this and think “haha, what a jerk”. They would hardly be shocked at the language as it is common nowadays for kids to use over-the-top images and descriptions in an attempt at humor and to get attention, nor would they feel intimidated or fearful over his point. </p>
<p>Perhaps the school newspaper was not the appropriate outlet for the unsanitized piece, and they should have edited before it made it in there in the first place if it was outside their boundaries for language and crudity. But in the end, it is just an opinion, that the guy, however boorish, has a right to express. It is an open question whether there must always be an apology when language offends somebody–that is a slippery slope–but I don’t understand the outrage over something that will likely have exactly zero impact on policy. Whether it affects his future job prospects in his chosen field in a different matter.</p>
<p>Well jeez, if the medical community didn’t make it so hard for women to obtain effective birth control, unlike men who can grab a box of trojans to go with their bottle of scotch at the drug store, we wouldn’t be clogging up the appointment pipeline and forcing weak little men with runny noses to wait half an hour to get their temp-a-ture taken.</p>