ABSTRACT

Nursing is culturally coded as women's work. In the Norwegian context, males constitute only five per cent of all nurses. When examining the male nursing role, striking similarities with the construction of a caring role of modern fathers have been found. Often men insist on doing fathering their own way without being directed by the cultural scripts of mothering. This chapter draws on this insight when trying to explore the construction of an embodied male nursing practice, seeing this as comprising symbolizing structural processes that are also historically changing. The analysis is based on data from a study on bodywork in the health field where male nurses were also interviewed. The chapter also examines two instances of disembodying processes in care work, namely the male nursing role in psychiatry and inherent contradictions in the construction of a respectable male nursing role in intensive care.