The systems and signs of political militants in/of Brazilian nursing

a historical and qualitative research based on oral history carried out with 11 nurses who had been working in the professional field since 1980. Data collected from semi-structured interviews were organized into NVivo software 10, being analyzed through dialectical hermeneutics.

Results:

systems and signs are systems that allow us to use senses, symbols or meaning to objectify and subjectivate the subject. The revealed senses were categorized and divided into improper, religious, heroic, communist, and socially involved.

Conclusions:

militancy signs are convergent with what is put in national and international literature. The difference found was in the heroic sense and implicated with the social. Militant is almost never associated with positive aspects. An individual who builds himself as a political being empowers himself as a social being, making knowledge of power, generating a break in traditional models.

Descriptors:
Nursing; Politics; Leadership; History of Nursing; Systems

Corpus	Hermeneutic-dialectic synthesis
[...] a lady of good status going to, how do you say it, to demonstrations, only if it were a very different thing. [...] now you have a husband who, at the time he's at home, he won't want a wife who's going to and fro making politics, you see? [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 1)	Improper Meaning
[...] that the women who belonged to the militancy either were lesbians, because to be able to go there you had to be a lesbian, or if they had husbands they were cheating on their husbands, then he would tell me: "What do you think it is?" [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 2)
[...] because if you take the communications of nursing professionals themselves, even in REBEn, you will see that there are many works, [...] also nurses, they couldn't be, they had to be that sort of tranquil lady, obedient, who couldn't… how do you say, be involved in politics, naturally, politics was men's business and not women's, and Nursing also has this thing that it is [...] Christian spirit and obedience and there is this group that already rebelled against that, isn't it?! [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 4)
[...] men are not afraid of power, women are not raised to have it, I think that, as I told you, nobody raises anybody for militancy (…) in school I was never one to disrespect, I was respectful, always listened to authority as authority, but I raised arguing points so I was the hippie, more than the communist, the communist was (another student) [...] I never was a political militant, they say political militants are the worst students, but I never had a low grade [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 6)
[...] well, if power is tied to the male question, it's obvious that people from National Association of Nursing Assistants and Technicians had more strength than those from ABEn, because they have way more men, I don't want to say with this that there aren't women with the ability to discuss politics and everything. [...] sex issues are a strong element to the analysis of any theme that involves nursing, especially when it comes to drawing a parallel to political militancy, which is historically a space of male power. [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 10)
[...] sex issues certainly interfere with political militancy. I think that is something that weights in a lot, militancy, it ends up being seen way more as a male space. Women, because they have their second and third shifts, they also face a lot of difficulty to be in militancy, from a point of view od management, of positions, of union positions, or in associations, they are seen so much as male spaces [...] . To the point that sex issues will crossover there, mainly, due to a stereotype that that is a male space and who goes there will become masculine, will be fighting, "Ah, this one won't be able to take care of the house, of a husband, of children", because the most expected role for women is to get married, take care of the house and of children. Being in militancy is to be in the world of the streets, which is not the private world that society expects for women. [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 11)

Corpus

Hermeneutic-dialectic synthesis

[...] so at the time and in so many things there's the matter of you having to dress like a nun, that you… Is there anything worse than saying the patient is sexless? By the heavens, seriously, and that we had no sex? That we couldn't cry, that we couldn't get emotional. It was how we were raised, but how will I take care of someone who's there, which I think is the most delicate thing in the life of a human being, it is you, beautiful, professional, hard-working, it is, with all the possibilities to see yourself in a bed, depending on someone, and this person says you're not a man, for God's sake, that is horrible [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 2)

Religious Meaning

[...] that experience made me realize the strong influence of our origins related to religion and to sex, because the "money" issue is very hard. We don't know how to work the financial issues, we deny its necessity, that is to say, the importance of economic valuing of work, but we actively participate in the healthcare market [...] it is not discussed to bring forth [...] [the topic] of money, it's like sin, like you're a capitalist. [...] I remember when I went to the ABEn congress, there were a lot of nuns that, for us to see the lecturer, we had to turn to look past the hats and veils, besides, I remember that a deputies' assembly was suspended so everyone could attend mass. [...] men, since they are little, are used not to cry, are used to have power, while women are forced to be submissive [...] mass was prayed here at the School as well as in ABEn in the beginning of assemblies, so this thing is very strong. [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 10)

Corpus	Hermeneutic-dialectic synthesis
[...] the suffering of the current president must be horrible, because the president was the vice-president for another one, later she took over and we don't know what will become of ABEn… Get it? [...] she does it, if she is president, she gets things done, she does it daily, she wants to do more than routine, if she has availability and time. [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 1)	Heroic Meaning
[...] a militant has to be a person who is able to, even with all the workload, with matters like children, husband, problems, but she is always willing to discuss, to forward projects, she doesn't only do that you know, it's not just that routine thing, she tries to innovate, she is always updated as well as the others, the old ones also got update, but the militant too [...] I remember as president of ABEn, oh my God what an annoying thing, it is very bad, because you have to be there in the militancy defending even, for example, the career and salary plans of institutions [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 4)
[...] but obviously women who have a political involvement, who have a different gaze for those matters, they overcome all those matters, they'll be there with her child on her lap, breastfeeding her child or with the child in the crib. Countless times in Brazilian nursing congresses we see nursing directors asking us to provide cribs and whatnot, because they're taking a small child, bringing a babysitter, or resorting to taking their mothers along [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 11)

Corpus	Hermeneutic-dialectic synthesis
[...] the group that had this more critical view and that articulated with the more general social movement, it was understood like this, it was the communists, however, none of us had any filiation. [...] I think it was seen so by the school professors, the more traditional ones, they thought that the posture of the students' movement was one of rebellion [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 5)	Communist Meaning
[...] speaking about the collective view at the time (a nurse) was a good one to be the first president of the Union, because (she) always was, she like this communism thing. I was a face to be in the Union, because I was communist, so, but I will tell you that (someone who was a director of ABEn) was not a face for the Union. (someone who was a President of ABEn) never was a face for the Union, she was for other political struggles [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 6)
[...] a classmate who took part in the academic directory was called subversive, he was shunned by some peers and harassed by some professors, [...] the professors were implanted to be there, looking, seeking students who participated in the movement and who were identified as subversive by those professors, and many students were arrested [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 8)

Corpus	Hermeneutic-dialectic synthesis
[...] a political militant nurse, I'll make an effort. I think this person, she articulates her praxis with a more general context, either in the institution or in society as a whole [...] I think this person, that's why I said she articulates herself, she would tend to have a less rigid stance in relation to what is established. Norm by the norm, hierarchy. She would tend to be more, to have a more collective work, more participative, but I can't see this profile as clearly as you put it [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 5)	Meaning implied with social matters
[...] we were always taught to have solidarity with, with the poor, there was this thing that, respectable to see, to help, to take things, to visit [...] when I came to live here, when I got to know the city of Salvador, it shocked me a lot here, because all, all poverty that I saw in my childhood, it had a layer of dignity. [...] so, it was like that, I said, people, they were poor but they worried about the beauty of the place, so on, when I knew the misery in the outskirts of Salvador I was very shocked, because it was completely different from poverty in my town, my town had a particularity that I think that marked my social identity, it was, the lunatics in my town, all of them were sustained by the community. [...] so the city somehow taught me that those people were just different, but they weren't excluded, right? [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 6)
[...] because it's that way as soon as you incorporate those perspectives in your life. Race, sex, you cannot look at race, sex without looking at social class matters too, so you look at content not only through the technical perspective, but also through the political one, of how it develops within the processes of health policies. And then there is the participation in conferences, in spaces where we can make it so politics get a little closer to that which you believe is the best for the population and that you can contribute with [...] (Rosa dos Ventos 11)

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[1] Corresponding author: Deybson Borba de Almeida. E-mail: dbalmeida@uefs.br