[Gender representations and morality in the nursing profession]. / Representações de gênero e moralidade na prática profissional da enfermagem.

This text is part of a dialogue between the authorserlating to two research projects: one on "The professional ambiguities, work conditions and the citizenship of nurses--a comparative study in the Federal District and São Paulo" and the other on "The impact of work conditions on the nurses in the Hospital São Paulo as to sexual and reproductive life". Nursing occupies a singular place in the health professions. Is is differentiated by numeric importance as well as by a professional practice which is almost exclusively feminine. Culturally, to care is attributed as a woman's task (nurse, mother teacher, social worker, etc.); to treat is a man's task (doctor, father, provider, etc.) The dichotomy between caring and treating denies other conflicts, relations of power, and of hierarchies established in the professional practice of nursing. These conflicts may be associated with: a) the founding myth of the origin of nursing, generator of a morality and a competence which condition htis professional practice; b) feminity, mothering, the administration of intimacy and body care, that is, the social representations of nursing with respect to gender; c) the androcentric character of power relations and those of sexuality which subsume the professional space of nursing.