In 1847, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to be accepted to medical school in America. Nineteenth-century Americans viewed medicine as a man’s job, but by refusing to allow cultural norms to constrict her ambitions to become a doctor, Ms. Blackwell allowed me and all female medical students in America to fulfill our ambitions. I had taken her sacrifice as granted and believed that my generation of Americans had been influenced by the feminist movement to consider women as intelligent, rational, capable individuals worthy of economic, intellectual, and political independence. Gradually, I have realized that perhaps the women’s movement has not done enough to change culture even in twenty-first century America. This realization has been forced upon me by fellow students and doctors who have demonstrated just how difficult it is to change mentalities shaped by centuries of misogynistic tradition.
One of my first medical school classes required us to analyze patient-doctor relationships and to distinguish between inappropriate and appropriate behavior. The students were divided into small groups, and each of the groups discussed ways to demonstrate an inappropriate physician-patient interaction. Someone suggested one inappropriate behavior was a physician flirting with a patient, and a young man, attempting to build upon that idea, leeringly suggested analyzing a scenario similar to one he had read in a pornographic magazine. The other men in the room recognized exactly what magazine he was referring to and began to laugh, making further comments about what the magazine had been depicting.
On the surface, this scene may just seem like young men being facetious, but the implications of these men’s words and actions underscore an alarming sexist attitude. Well-educated, intelligent men just admitted that they read magazines that violated and humiliated women. And not only did they admit to reading these magazines, but they actually appreciated something that was inherently degrading towards women. In doing so they endorsed the misogynistic attitudes these magazines propagated. What really disturbed me is that despite all of their education, which would supposedly have broadened their minds and exposed them to different ways of thinking, these future doctors were just as patriarchal as those nineteenth-century men who scoffed at the idea of a female physician.
Little incidents began accumulating.
One of my friends was told by a doctor with whom she was training that the only reason a female patient liked her was not because of her great interviewing skills, but because she was a woman. To this doctor, my friend’s gender trumped all of her other qualities—her intelligence, her sympathy, and her ability to understand patients. It is true that female patients are likelier to open up to a female physician, but they are also willing to open up to a physician, whether this physician is male or female, who demonstrates a genuine care for the patient. Instead of being one of many contributing factors to the interview, gender became the only factor.
One day, in the middle of class discussion of alcoholism, one male student stated that wives drove their husbands to become alcoholics because marriage was so terrible for men. I’m sure that he meant it just as a joke, but jokes based on gender are completely inappropriate in an academic and professional setting. Intimating that women drove men crazy in front of female colleagues did not seem sexist to this student, but this was precisely the problem: these sexist statements were accepted as a societal norm!
Two days later, the joke was repeated, and both men and women laughed at it. When I noticed my female colleagues laughing at something that humiliated women, frankly, I was embarrassed for my gender. I was also embarrassed by myself, because although I did not laugh, I did not say that this behavior was unacceptable.
When women do not respond to inappropriate behavior, we cannot hold men responsible for sexist attitudes. The comments that men make are part of the problem, but so are we. Women are silently endorsing sexism because they refuse to defend themselves. Afraid of confrontation, we do not vocalize our problems with patriarchal attitudes. We feel that sexism is a cultural issue of the past, one that was dealt with during the feminist revolution of the 1960s and 70s. We believe that being allowed to wear whatever we want, do whatever we want, and vote for whoever we want constitutes equality. It does not. Receiving the respect we deserve and having our contributions to medicine and society acknowledged are a step to equality.
In 1849, Ms. Blackwell became Dr. Blackwell as she graduated with her M.D. degree at the top of her all-male class in Geneva College. Since then, medicine has become less dominated by men, but still more cultural attitudes remain to be changed in the struggle for female physicians to establish ourselves.
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