The body and doing gender: The relations between doctors and nurses in hospital work

Abstract

This article attempts to show how the concept of the body - as it has been applied in feminist thought - can be utilised in trying to understand the changing and at times problematic working relations between doctors and nurses in Sweden. Three approaches are applied with respect to the body: (1) Doctors and nurses belong to two different collective bodies which embody historical constructions of masculinity and femininity - which in turn have influenced how members of each corps have seen and worked with the other and how they approach each other even in the present day. (2) Gender is inscribed on the body. It is contended that in social encounters we never interact with each other as genderless beings, although we may very well take gender for granted and its importance may possibly be most salient in initial encounters. A nurse, then, never just interacts with a doctor - it is a female doctor or a male doctor and this makes a difference. 'Doing gender' is accomplished in these practices. (3) There is the question of situatedness - where (hospital staff) bodies find themselves on the ward and in the hospital in the daily run of things. Space and place are not neutral but are linked to relations of power and gender and class. How doing dominance and doing deference are accomplished - but also changed - in hospital work is addressed.