'A man is a clumsy thing who does not know how to handle a sick person': Aspects of the history of masculinity and race in the shaping of male nursing in South Africa, 1900-1950

The history of the emergence of male nurses in South Africa and the concomi tant debates about training, employment and policy concerning male nurses, particularly black male nurses, forms the subject of this paper. The paper argues that the silence around the existence of male nurses in South Africa was produced by both white health officials and broader public discourses around appropriate masculine roles and careers, as well as by the associati on of 'professional nursing' with 'women' in both black and white communiti es. Contradictions - stretched across racial and class divides - emerged ar ound the gendered division of nursing, and its explicit connection to woman liness. However, in times of war and industrial, particularly mining, healt h settings these stresses produced opportunities for the recognition of men as nurses. The paper traces the periodisation of male nurses in South Afri ca in these two arenas (war contexts and mining), making use of official re ports, minutes of meetings, fetters and autobiographical accounts as well a s recorded debates, to analyse the terrain upon which men emerged as profes sional nurses. The article argues that first in 1928, and again in the imme diate post-Second World War era, South Africa was provided with opportuniti es to refigure both the racially-based exclusions of male nurses, as well a s the prevailing definitions of masculinity which constrained the professio n. However, these opportunities were finally lost after 1948. Until very re cently, male nurses were divided against one another according to race, and from their women nursing colleagues.