Resumo

CANO-CABALLERO GALVEZ, María Dolores. Nursing and gender, time for thinking in order to change. Index Enferm [online]. 2004, vol.13, n.46, pp.34-39. ISSN 1699-5988.

When nursing thinks about its professional activity is implies to take position and, in order to do so, it is necessary to know its history, where nursing is now and where it is going. To define the nursing profession is a difficult task even for the professionals due to the variety of adjectives used and to their meanings. Its drift and lack of consensus has influenced and keeps influencing the perception of this group. The bibliography has been revised in order to know which is the contribution of public nursing to the perception of this activity, and to identify what is important for the profession. It will be defined from the gender perspective because we consider that is one of the bests in order to define the profession, not only because of the importance of the feminine component in it, but also because of its main activity: providing care.