Nursing and power. Poststructuralism and its application to the power-relationships in the "female" occupation of nursing The theory of Foucault is used to outline a "genealogy" of nursing, historically a female occupation, subordinate to medicine. Foucault's ideas about power, discourse and panopticon are analysed in relation to nursing. The concept of discourse enables the writer to see the "feminine ideology" of society as the effect of power on the identity, behaviour and expression of emotion of women in nursing. The hospital and the "Mutterhaus" can be understood as panoptical institutions. Hospital nurses are in a position in which they have powers of disciplining patients and at the same time are themselves subject to surveillance and normalisation. As a concrete example, the techniques of using power, which originate from monasteries, form "norm-traps" when applied to nursing. Finally, not only the question of power, but also that of resistance to power, is addressed. Professionalisation and the move towards science-based nursing can be seen as "counter discourse". This is meant to set up the nurses' own knowledge base, their understanding of the nurse-patient relationship and of nursing practice, against the view of nursing as a profession subordinate to medicine. Foucault's view of power and resistance leads the writer to align herself with "the other side", in this case professionalisation in nursing. But at the same time one is invited to take the offensive in the debate of old and new contradictions.