The study aimed at reviewing the history of the genesis and social formation of nurses work in Peru in order to understand it according to women's social situation in the context of a masculine society organized under capitalism. Thus, nursing formation was influenced by the Nightingale School and the exercise of the Peruvian nurses was characterized by the reproduction of social functions that are historically feminine, with a knowledge and practice subordinated to medical knowledge, that is mainly directed by a masculine ideology.
women work; nursing work; gender and nursing