Feminism, Class Consciousness and Household-Work Linkages among Registered Nurses in Victoria

This survey of 179 Registered Nurses at a large acute care hospital deals with connections between the practices in which nurses are engaged in households and workplaces and the consciousness which both informs and arises from those practices. A large majority of respondents was opposed to male prerogatives and in favour of more domestic equality and removing pay inequities for women. On more controversial gender issues and with respect to class politics, respondents' opinions were diverse. Younger, more subordinate, better educated nurses and those with working class spouses and relatively egalitarian domestic arrangements manifested progressive attitudes on class and gender issues, but these statistical relationships were weak. The lack of clear-cut correspondence between social position and consciousness may reflect nurses' contradictory experiences in, for example, cross-class marriages and quasi-professional work situations. Resume Cette etude de 179 infirmieres diplomees, dans un grand hopital de soins intensifs, traite des rapports entre l'experience des infirmieres engagees dans leur situation domestique et dans leur profession, et de la conscience qui decoule de cette double experience et qui aussi l'informe. Une grande majorite des personnes interrogees s'opposait aux prerogatives masculines et approuvait l'egalite domestique et salariale des femmes. Sur les questions plus controversees concernant la politique de sexe et de classe, les reponses etaient plus diversifiees. Les infirmieres plus jeunes, occupant une position subalterne, ainsi que celles dont le conjoint etait de la classe ouvriere et qui jouissaient d'une organisation domestique relativement egalitaire, affichaient des attitudes progressives sur les questions de classe et de sexe, mais ces correlations statistiques sont toutefois faibles. Le manque de correspondance marquee entre la position sociale et la conscience de classe et de sexe reflete peut-etre les experiences contradictoires des infirmieres dans, par exemple, des mariages inter-classe ou une situation de travail quasi-professionel.