ABSTRACT
The primary division of labour in health represents a sexual division in its most blatant form, namely that between male medicine and female nursing. Our focus in this chapter is on nursing work within hospitals though this is not where all nurses work. The irony in all of this is that nursing requiries and encourages mothering qualities, and yet conditions and hours of work make it almost impossible to be a mother as well. Hospital administrations are concerned that part-time nurses might disrupt full-time ones because of their more favourable job conditions. In the traditional Nightingale system, nursing consisted of two functions: ‘nursing the room’ or hygiene, and assisting the doctor. Family symbolism was meant to ensure medical authority. The traditional distinction between nursing and medicine has been between curing or diagnostic functions and patient care but in practice the dividing line is not clear. Doctors exercise not only the power of the father but direct sexual power over nurses.
