The woman above, a nurse at a Georgia hospital, was told to go home and not to come back to work until she got rid of her flamboyant (I’m being nice) hair style. The woman—I don’t care what her name is—claims that the ‘do is culturally significant, whatever that’s supposed to mean. She also claims that it doesn’t interfere with her job, which I would dispute, and that the hospital is discriminating against her race by telling her that is isn’t professional to dress up like an exotic bird …
…to care for sick people.
I think the lawsuit is a loser: I’m sure the administrators will say convincingly that no one, male or female, black, white or puce, would be allowed to work with that on their head. The woman is an exhibitionist. Personally, I would be wary of trusting any hospital that allowed someone with such dubious judgment and misaligned values to be charged with patient care.
Also, as someone whose week long stay in a hospital last summer featured being awakened out of a deep sleep to have some nurse’s head four inches from my face, the sight of that hat hair could spark a cardiac episode.
But hey! I can be convinced otherwise. So that’s why…
Today’s Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz is…
Ethics Alarms 
I am pasty white with straight hair. However, I have a bigger objection to long fingernails that disable the ability to type than hair that does not interfere. In fact I encourage personal expression on my teams and have learned just how significant hair style is in the black community. Pants hanging below the buttocks is another thing all together. If she has a loving demeanor and is exceptionally skilled at nursing, I say the hospital should embrace forward thinking and embrace this kind of expression. A beautiful and generous smile with hair like that is a great conversation piece to brighten the cold sterility of modern hospitals. I say she is both meeting and also exceeding by accident.
The hair signals “I don’t follow rules or conform to societal standards.” if there’s any profession where that message is unsettling, nursing is one. The ‘do also says “regard making a cultural statement more important than the trust of my clients.
“societal standards”
Have you seen society lately?
Until recently, most facilities wouldn’t allow nurses with visible tattoos or piercing other than one/ear. So…probably not. Nursing and CNA students still aren’t allowed to have those.
“Is a nurse who wears her hair like that meeting minimal professional standards?”
Obviously not. And also obviously there is the issue of “professional decorum”. The nurse must ask, and certainly her hospital must ask, “How will patients receive this exotic imagery?” (I might suggest placing a small speaker inside the hairdo where exotic jungle bird calls sound out). Nor does the exotic head ornament comply with the (normalized) nurse uniform which is white and a bit rigid or regimented. Obviously if she is allowed to exhibit such outrageousness, then no other could be so inhibited. So they must clamp down.
The issue of “cultural expression” might be brought up and of course repression of the same could be described as racial bias. Surely this will come up. The question of “exotic presentation of the self” is — perhaps more in Black culture than in White, Latino or Asian cultures (?) — an issue in the politics of culture wars. Is this not one reason why traditional names are modified and themselves made exotic-seeming? Similarly there are visual signs the purpose of which is to signify difference. In the African-American literature I have read defining difference is a big deal. The sense that my original identity was robbed from me and I struggle to come up with one that I decide on.
Note that if this issue — this woman and her strange head presentation — were posted on certain forums today, unknown to the decent on this blog surely, the mood and tone of opposition to the display would indeed be “racist”. Like for example the ridicule of the so-called “chimp out”. Presented on thousands of videos mostly in fast food restaurants, the offended individual goes ballistic: insulting, screaming, tossing condiments and making a terrible scene. It is a cultural tantrum but one tied into modern social conflicts where the oppressed rages against some type of confinement (within normal manners?)
“small speaker inside the hairdo where exotic jungle bird calls sound out”
While I still agree that my own perspective is potentially viable for a culture which has performative hair traditions that don’t interfere with occupational tasks, this particular slippery slope suggestion has convinced me of the realistic problems which are bound to occur in my region.
How on earth did she do that? Straightened, then dyed, then … glued?
From what is evidently permissible on ubiquitous television advertisements, all black women must wear their hair untreated in any way and falling freely down each side of their head from a center part that looks as if it was created by an axe. This nurse has clearly gone way off the reservation.
Never mind the gaudy appearance – an expensive and delicate hair do like that leaves one concerned that in an emergency situation, she would have somewhat divided attention between the patient and not messing up the expensive and delicate hair do.
In my opinion, no.
Also, it’s my opinion that she was intentionally sticking her thumb in her employers eye, in other words, it was a very deliberate act of defiance, disrespect, annoyance, against her employer and coworkers. I bet there is much, much more open defiance of her employer in her personnel record leading up to this act of defiance.
That said; whoever sculpted that hairdo is a very talented artist. I’m really curious, how many hours did it take to complete that hairdo and how much did it cost?
Additional observation: the photos of that person with that hairdo were likely taken at three different times, notice the differences in the ear rings and the nose piercing. Plus there are a few anomaly’s in the photo making me wonder about the authenticity, it’s likely authentic and the person that put together the collage just didn’t do a good job.
That hairdo certainly wouldn’t work in an operating theatre, where she’d be required to wear a hair cover.
absolutely NOT.
Unfortunatley, many professsions seem to have set aside any rule of decorum and dress. Teachers in jeans and t:shirts, physicians in logoed polo shirts. Allowing everyone to be on afirst name basis.
If you want to be considered a professional in any field than one should dress professionally !Or as the adage syas”dress for success”
I’m going to be contrary:
About half of my family in in health care, and maybe that colors my commentary, but I’m not sure that the doo is per se unprofessional. Google “patterned scrubs”. There is a long standing, time honored tradition among nurses to try to skirt the edges of dress code policy to try to inject a little levity into a rough profession. This… is certainly a statement piece. She’s obviously a narcissist. But there are a lot of narcissists out there exhibiting statement pieces, and fashion is in the eye of the beholder….. And HR.
HR can, should and will set policies on things like dress code. And there’s always a little tension between some of the floor staff (who everyone knows) and HR on acceptability. But I’m honestly coming up blank on what the policy looks like that differentiates this from a lot of other things. The doo probably doesn’t physically interfere with her duties. The colors are bright, but they’re almost certainly not going to be lone examples on her floor.
As an exercise; Try to write the policy that would preclude that doo, but do it in such a way that you aren’t obviously targeting this employee, and remain cognizant that if your policy is too strict, you’ll probably lose other staff to locations with less strict rules than you have.
I always hope that medical staff are highly qualified and conscientious. What they wear should be irrelevant. However, I find it difficult to take seriously anyone who wears anything that screams ‘look at me.’ So no Kool-Aid dyed hair, no 4-inch fingernails (sanitary?), multiple piercings, tattoos on neck and face, weird hair styles, hooker-eye-makeup …. What about women who must wear burkas instead of scrubs?
But I’m thinking my age plays into all this. A lot of younger people will have no problem trusting someone with this hair style, and might just find it interesting and self-expressive, even a distraction from their pain or affliction. I don’t love the hairstyle, but does it really interfere with her job?
I’m not a lawyer, so am wondering how difficult it is to craft a legal, non-discriminatory dress and appearance code.