Interview with Ansley French, History 150 Spring 2024, Conducted by Layla French, March 20th, 2024.

Overview to Social Change Interview:

In this interview the interviewer, Layla French, interviews her mother, Ansley French about her journey to becoming a registered nurse as well as her career following this accomplishment. The interview begins with the interviewer asking Ansley about where/how she grew up. Through this, the audience is able to infer that the interviewee grew up in an upper to middle-class household in Northern Virginia. Ansley then goes on to talk about her college career, stating she went to Virginia Polytechnic Institute for her undergraduate, and completed courses at various other colleges before getting her bachelors of science in nursing. The interviewee is then asked questions about her position as a woman in the medical field, and through this the listener is able to get a sense of gender discrimination in healthcare. This interview takes place over the past 35 years of Ansley’s life, beginning with her childhood and high school memories, and through the present. Nursing became very prevalent in the 20th century, and it was around this time that nursing was labeled as “women’s work”. Similar to how women were seen as the assistant to their husbands in the household, nursing was viewed as a lesser skilled position under doctors. In reality, both occupations require roughly the same amount of education, work, and willpower, and can be completed successfully by any gender. Similar to other interviews on the JMU Interview Website, the interviewee is given the space to talk as much or as little she feels is needed. This is done to best portray her story and give her time to think about her answers. Gender is a very common theme for this approach, but it can also be seen in healthcare, education, marriage, and racial identity interviews. This interview features topics of gender, class, and education as Ansley French recounts her story of becoming a nurse, and how it has gone over the past 20 years.

 

I Brief Biography:

The interviewee in this Social Change Interview will be the interviewer’s mother, Ansley French, who has been a nurse for almost 20 years. She grew up in Fairfax, Virginia, and attended Virginia Tech for her masters in human services. The interviewee currently works in a cardiology lab at a hospital in Northern Virginia, where she has been for a little over 10 years. She and her spouse, Eric French, have been married for about 25 years and have two children; the interviewer and her brother Dylan. She uses she/her/hers pronouns, goes by Ansley, and is comfortable with this interview being shared on a public platform. 

 

II Contextualized Research:

The evolution of nursing as a predominantly female profession is deeply intertwined with historical and social factors. According to Teresa Scherzer, a UCSF School of Nursing graduate,  “existing historical and sociological factors” have played fundamental roles in shaping nursing as “women’s work,” (Scherzer, 24). Topics like womens’ rights to vote, early marriages, and the role of being a stay-at-home mom heavily impacted the social perception of nursing. Similarly to how women were seen as the assistant to their husband in the household, nurses became viewed as lesser equipped than doctors. According to Latonya Trotter, a professor of humanities at the University of Washington, “in 2014, nursing was the third most common occupation for women,” (Trotter, 506). Therefore, the early implications of nursing being perceived as a feminine job have carried into the present, and now take form in the population of employed U.S. women. 

The profession of nursing originally emerged as an employment option for women because of their exclusion from other paid employments. While an important moment in history, this series of events eventually contributed to the perpetuation of gender stereotypes within healthcare. Trotter says that “while barriers to women’s employment have decreased, obstacles to their investments in careers remain,” (Trotter, 504). She goes on to say that “gender bias in hiring, position assignment, and promotion remains a reality for women,” especially in the United States, (Trotter, 504). Essentially, gender differences in the workforce have improved since the 20th century, but will continue to show long lasting effects in the system of healthcare for many years. Further implications of gender division in healthcare employment can be seen in sections like race and class. Scherzer says that “the degradation of labor and the change of race/gender makeup of the workforce go hand-in-hand, and bolster social ideologies that justify inequalities and oppression,” (Scherzer, 26). As nursing became increasingly associated with femininity and caregiving, the modern understandings of racism, classism, and other prejudices were combined with it. This also relates to the integration of education, which has become more complicated over the past 40 years.

Over the past two decades, there has been a significant shift in the pre-education in relation to the career path of nursing. According to Toni Inglis, “entry-level nursing education has drastically moved from diploma programs” into “associate’s or bachelor’s degree programs,” (Ingils,1). This is also associated with higher average incomes for nurses, especially with the shortage of nurses in the early 2000s. As demands for healthcare became stronger, the number of nurses in the United States increased too. With this came the “rise in graduates from associate’s degree programs, from 19% in 1980 to 40% in 2000,” (Ingris, 1). This shift has implications for both the quality of patient care and the opportunities available to nurses, highlighting the ongoing evolution of nursing in global healthcare.

My first article comes from the journal of Race, Gender, & Class. While it was published in 2004, the information is very helpful to understanding the history of nursing and healthcare. I feel this article is credible because it does not include any opinions, only proven and peer reviewed statistics and data from other renowned authors. In 2018 the author of the paper, Teresa Scherzer received the UCSF Chancellor Diversity Award for her efforts to develop and support diversity and inclusion in UCSF organizations. I feel this award and the skills she needed to obtain also help in establishing a trust with her reasoning and chosen data despite the article being 20 years old. There is also no obvious monetary gain from the publication of this paper, and it was peer reviewed and posted in an academic journal. My second article comes from The American Journal of Nursing and was published in 2017. There is no known monetary gain from the creation of this paper. With that, the author shows extensive knowledge in his field with a board certification of Nurse Practitioning and a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin. The author, Latonya Trotter, also doubles as professor at the university, increasing her knowledge and understanding of the topic. My last article comes from Toni Inglis, a registered nurse and educator from the United States. Her cited sources in the article reflect credibility through status, and she is careful not to include any opinions or biases in her paper. There is no clear monetary gain and I feel the source is a great option for investigating the trends nursing prior to the 21st century.

 

III Bibliography:

Inglis, Toni. “Nursing the Trends.” The American Journal of Nursing, vol. 104, no. 1, 2004, pp. 

25–32. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/29745521. Accessed 10 Apr. 2024.

 

Scherzer, Teresa. “The Race and Class of Women’s Work.” Race, Gender & Class, vol. 10, no.

3, 2003, pp. 23–41. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41675086. Accessed 10 Apr. 2024.

 

Trotter, Latonya J. “Making a Career: Reproducing Gender within a Predominantly Female 

Profession.” Gender and Society, vol. 31, no. 4, 2017, pp. 503–25. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44630957. Accessed 7 Apr. 2024.

 

IV Transcription:

Layla French: Hi, my name is Layla French, and I’m with my mother today. If you’d like to introduce yourself, go ahead.

 

Ansley French: Hi, my name is Ansley French.

 

Layla French: Could you tell me a little bit about your childhood and how you grew up?

 

Ansley French: Sure, I’m an only child. I grew up in the suburbs of DC, I spent a lot of time playing with friends or reading, did pretty well in school. I was kind of shy, came out of my shell, I guess in high school.

 

Layla French: Thank you. And could you tell me a little bit about your post high school education?

 

Ansley French: So I went to Virginia Tech for four years and obtained a Bachelors of Science in Human Services, which was like social work and counseling. From there, I graduated, and I didn’t find a job in my major, and so I started to do legal research. Then while I was doing that, I decided I really wanted to go back to school to try nursing. I always liked medical stuff since I was a kid, I used to read about that kind of stuff. When I was like in elementary school, I always found it really interesting, and I really liked to help people and have a passion for helping people, so it just kind of combined the two. [Slight pause], my uncle, who was a surgeon, also passed away about the same time, which helped [cure?] me towards going to school in Atlanta. So I went to Emory University, Atlanta, and I did two years of school there to get my bachelor’s in nursing. I had to take a couple of science classes in between there, and I took those all at NOVA and Marymount University just because my original degree did not have a lot of science in it. So I had to take those before I applied and got into school in Atlanta.

 

Layla French: And when you decided that you wanted to work in healthcare, was it an immediate choice for nursing, or did you consider any other options?

 

Ansley French: No, [it] was an immediate choice for nursing.

 

Layla French: While you were in school, did you notice a specific gender more often than not in your professors?

 

Ansley French: Um, the majority of my professors were female. At least in nursing school our pharmacy instructor was male. And I really don’t remember, I think everybody was female.

 

Layla French: What about the-

 

Ansley French: There’s only sixty people. So it’s not like it’s a huge program. I mean, it’s, there’s only so many nursing spots, so 2000

 

Layla French: What would you say the majority [gender] was for your classmates?

 

Ansley French: Oh, majority were female. There’s probably like maybe five to six guys, like of sixty. 

 

Layla French: Okay, and you mentioned living in Atlanta, is that only place that you’ve lived over the course of your education in your career?

 

Ansley French: We also lived in North Carolina, not for education, but as a career.

 

Layla French: Okay, and did you face any financial obstacles when you decided that you wanted to work in nursing?

 

Ansley French: I did not face any financial obligation or problems with, sorry, I can’t remember your wording. Let’s see, what was it? Yeah, no, I didn’t have any trouble with paying for school. 

 

Layla French: Got it, and you’ve mentioned to me before that you felt under-appreciated or overlooked by male coworkers during your career, could you tell me a little bit more about this?

 

Ansley French: Um, it’s actually not coworkers that I felt that way. [Pause], it’s, it’s, I’m trying to, I don’t even know if it’s necessarily a doctor’s, either. Majority of the time it’s probably patients where they look upon me as a female, where, you know, the female is just not supposed to be as strong gender, in their family or their culture wherever they’re from. In, you know, the United States, just rural versus urban, suburban. But yeah, I, I don’t think I’ve ever really, I’m fairly certain I’ve not noticed any issues from male colleagues towards me, we just have to work as a team so much that I don’t even think about my teammates being male or female, and I don’t think they do either. It’s just you as a person, that’s the most important thing. So to dwell on, who’s a male or female is irrelevant.

 

Layla French: Okay, what would you say that the biggest challenge is that you faced over the course of your career?

 

Ansley French: Um, it depends on where I’ve worked. Um, working on the floor as a new grad nurse, it was challenging to manage my time working in the ER, it, there was a challenge to know as much information as you needed to know and to be expected to know stuff that you didn’t know. It was kind of a challenge, but it was also the coolest place that I worked. And then I think, overall, like second guessing yourself, sometimes. That’s just something you have to overcome. You have to, you have to acknowledge and recognize that you do have the experience, and you do have the knowledge. For me, and some people, they don’t have a problem with it, and they could be wrong and still be sure of themselves. Um, but I don’t know if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. It’s trusting yourself, I think sometimes, like, that’s yeah.

 

Layla French: I’ve met a lot of your co-workers throughout my life, could you tell me about some of the relationships that you’ve had while working in this career? 

 

Ansley French: Um, yeah, we work really closely with each other. Like, in proximity and physically as well. So we kind of know the ins and outs. And we have to know the ins and outs just because if there’s something going on, our teammates need to know about it. There’s always a variety of personalities, you click with some more than others, but I’m fairly easygoing, and I get along with everybody. So I don’t know, it’s really nice to, to connect with people. And you know, do stuff at work and outside of work, but really, you just have to depend on one another. You have to recognize when somebody else needs help before they have to ask for it. So it’s just a lot of trust. Then it carries, naturally carries on like outside of work, so we still maintain relationships outside of work, probably based on how much we depend on one another at work.

 

Layla French: So that’s a great aspect of your career that you just told us about. Could you explain to us what you look forward to, or hope to see the most in the future of your career?

 

Ansley French: Um, yes, I like teaching so I enjoy precepting [supervising] at work, so you know, continuing to do that. Can you hear how loud it [our house] is? Let me close this [pause]. We’re always expanding our department. And so learning how to lead new people that come on board or play a part, sorry, so really trying to play a part in opening the new labs and, and being somebody, like an important person for everybody. We have ever changing technology that we have to use, there’s always something to learn. So, you know, continuing to learn, continuing to be a person that people look to, and just, you know, maintaining that team player aspect.

 

Layla French: Yeah. And do you predict any changes in your career within the next, I guess, twenty years.

 

Ansley French: Now, I enjoy, I like working on the ground level. I don’t want to work in management,

it’s just not fun to me, so I’d like to continue where I am. I’m one of the more senior people right now, so just continue that way. But yeah, I really like where I am right now, I don’t see working anywhere else than where I work right now. It’s just just such a great place and a great group of people and the roles that I get to do every day. Very satisfying. 

 

Layla French: Yeah. And in terms of social change, are there any differences that you would predict within say, the next one hundred years? 

 

Ansley French: Um, let me think about that. Sorry, it’s a little distracting over here. I think they’re [Washington Capitals] in overtime. Social changes, um, you know, I really don’t know. I mean, everything is changed, like the past twenty years, thirty years. So it’s, it’s hard for me to, to think about that. It’s, it’s kind of hard in healthcare, it’s huge. You have a hierarchy, you have doctors and nurses and ancillary [janitorial] staff that work with one another. So don’t see, like, that social aspect changing because it’s, it’s the basis is still working as a team. 

 

Layla French: Right. 

 

Ansley French: And you can’t really change that. I mean, you can improve on it, but I don’t know. Yeah, not a great answer to your question. I’m sorry.

 

Layla French: No, that was great. And lastly, would you recommend partaking in your career career path to myself or my generation?

 

Ansley French: Absolutely. 100%. 

 

Layla French: Awesome, thank you so much. 

 

Ansley French: Thank you for having me. 

 

Layla French: Thanks.

 

V Overview of Technology and Process:

To conduct this interview, I set up a Zoom meeting with the interviewee. I hit the record button that Zoom offers to clients, and proceeded with my questions. The format was given to me as an mp4 file, so there was no need to convert it. My file was, however, a bit too big for the website, so I had to compress it a few times. 

 

VI Photo:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.istockphoto.com%2Fphotos%2Ffrustrated-nurse&psig=AOvVaw3OwOOgYoaz8GY8forhPMdO&ust=1712820438369000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCKC798OPt4UDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAJ

 

VII Description of Choices: 

Throughout the interview, there were a few pauses where the interviewee got distracted by background noises. I chose not to edit these out of the audio file, and instead keep them in to produce a sense of realness and livelihood in the interview. In the transcript, I denoted these as “[pause]’. I also used brackets to describe or define any ambiguous phrases and once to even explain a source of background noise the interviewee mentioned. 

 

VIII Columbia Style Guide:

When denoting numbers under 100 in the transcript, I spelt out the full word of the number. Luckily my audio was very clear, so I did not have to use the “[unclear]” statement throughout the transcript. For slight breaks in sentences which occurred a number of times, I used commas. I do not feel there were any elongated interjections that required the use of em-dashes. 

 

IX Reflection:

During the follow up portion of the process the interviewer’s research was shared with the interviewee. Ansley, the interviewee, said that she really enjoyed the research and it felt personal to her experiences as a nurse. There were no other significant details that emerged from the follow-up reflection other than Ansley approving of the transcript and project.