Researching Gender Professions: Nurses as Professionals

Abstract

Nurses as professionals of health, childhood education teachers, social workers and caregivers, join a group of
“feminine professions” which grew through policies of a welfare state in postwar constructive period, or in times of
postwar accords (Jones, 1983). These professions are under challenge because of neoliberal policies and practices in
the 21st century. In the paper, we want to give lights to the contradictory situations nurses face, as workers and as
care keepers. Nurses, suffer of a combination of public and private functions, at work, at home, and when caring
family relatives. The way women feel about their role as professionals, and as women and workers, is illuminative,
as we enquired in a funded research developed with nurses in the community of Navarra, Spain, first from 1993 to
1996, and next, checking a continuity each ten years, 2006 and next 2016.