Nurse Jennifer Melle was doing what few people would want to do: providing care — intimate, necessary, and skillful care — to a male prisoner convicte
Nurse Jennifer Melle was doing what few people would want to do: providing care — intimate, necessary, and skillful care — to a male prisoner convicted of child sexual abuse. A man the state had chained for good reason. A man who, by any sane measure, had long forfeited public trust.
Yet when he slurred her, racially degraded her, and threatened her safety, the institution’s focus was not on the danger she faced or the service she gave. It was on his preferences.
I thought he preferred expert healthcare but it turned out he wanted submission and subservience more.
And the healthcare institution backed him not her. 
1️⃣As a woman, even at your most skilled and selfless, you can be devalued in favor of a man
You can be performing work of high skill and moral patience — work that most wouldn’t touch — and still be treated as disposable if the man you’re serving becomes the institution’s priority.
The Jennifer Melle case shows exactly what many women have warned: women’s labor is taken for granted, our safety treated as secondary.
2️⃣ Institutions Will Cover a Male’s Feelings Before a Woman’s Safety
Even when he’s a convicted child predator. Slow down and process that. He already has violated children. Yet, he gets cover that is denied to her. With the whole world watching. Ain’t even no shame in their game.
There’s an old womanist truth here: when power must choose between protecting male ego or protecting a woman’s body and dignity, too often the male ego wins.
3️⃣ Boundaries Are Seen as Defiance When Directed at Men
Refusing to use his preferred language — based on your own ethics, the records in front of you, and his criminal reality — was treated as insubordination, not professional judgment.
For women, especially Black women, boundaries in the face of male demands are often recast as attitude or noncompliance.
She was giving him high-level expert care. Most people do not know how to install a catheter. But that was not enough for him. That was not enough for the institution. The disrespect is disheartening and undeserved.
4️⃣ Male History Can Be Erased in the Moment
That person entered that room a convicted predator in chains. His chains, his record, his violence — erased it all because he was not referred to the way he wanted to be.
5️⃣ Women Are Expected to Perform Intimacy Without Question
Without question and without the expectation of respect and dignity. (Who does she think she is? A real person or something?)
Inserting a catheter into a male predator’s body is intimate medical work requiring trust and professionalism. The fact that women are expected to perform this with no additional safeguards — and then be disciplined over his feelings — is a red flag about how female care labor is undervalued and exploited.
Sister, you can be brilliant, brave, and bending over backward in the service of your role — and still, the institution will bend toward the man. Especially when that man is dangerous. This is not a failure of your worth; it is the nature of the system. Protect yourself first. Keep your receipts. Name the truth. And never forget: boundaries are not a luxury for women in high-risk spaces — they are the difference between survival and sacrifice.
**Women’s rights organizations could start lifting their voices in support of nurses like Jennifer Melle any day now. She is not the first to experience this type of treatment around when asserting her rights and boundaries and it doesn’t appear that she will be the last. These are women’s rights issues. Where do you stand?
**Let us not allow any victim to be overshadowed. We are thinking of the victims of MrX.
