Professions and Patriarchy

The development of the nursing profession in a globalised context: A qualitative case study in Kerala, India

“…Though Abbott is critical of Larson, claiming that her work places too much emphasis on the state, and pays insufficient attention to struggle with other professions, we believe these approaches can be fruitfully combined to analyse the professional project in a context where both state and competing professions are significant. An issue of importance, in a strongly gendered profession like nursing, is the comparative neglect of gender as an issue in these professionalisation theories, especially in terms of professional status (Witz 1992). Equally, a limitation of most writers in this field is that the analysis draws principally on the history of the professions in the developed world.…”

“…This has caused nursing's status as a profession to be questioned by inter alia Etzioni (1969) who characterised nursing (along with social work and teaching) as a semi-profession. For a subordinate profession like nursing, the professional project will necessarily take the form of a dual closure strategy (Witz 1992). This entails an attempt to usurp the more powerful profession of medicine (by, for instance, taking on new roles which have hitherto been the province of doctors), while at the same time closing off nursing and its work to rivals of lower status.…”

“…Gender has been shown to have a significant relationship with professional projects (Witz 1992), with professions which are predominately female finding it harder to pursue a professional project than more male-dominated professions. This is due to gendered notions about what is appropriate behaviour for women in the workplace, women's careers and the status of work done largely by women (Witz 1992).…”

“…This is due to gendered notions about what is appropriate behaviour for women in the workplace, women's careers and the status of work done largely by women (Witz 1992). The status of nursing as a strongly feminized profession has particular consequences for its professional project.…”

Defining a Profession: The Role of Knowledge and Expertise

“…This kind of differentiation of professional boundaries can be exemplified further by work inspired by a neo-Weberian approach on the divisions in some countries with greater devolution like the United States between federal and statelevel professionalism (Freidson 1986); the differential historical and contemporary gender base of certain professions (Witz 1992); the ongoing interplay of the system of professions and their various jurisdictions (Abbott 1988); interprofessional working that may make for more or less permeable professional boundaries (Barrett, Sellman and Thomas 2005); organisational professionalism as distinct from occupational professionalism with the rise of powerful corporations and greater managerial accountability (Evetts 2006); and international as opposed to national patterns of professionalism related to the development of the European Union and more global points of political reference (Kuhlmann and Saks 2008).…”