When discussing women’s issues, the effect of gender norms never fails to escape the conversation. Gender norms have formed what we believe to be the “rules,” or expectations, for both men and women and create a binary society where any person acting outside of their given realm is seen as “breaking away” from the norm.
But why are these “rules” still in place? Have we not come far enough to realize that these outdated ideas are no longer applicable to us? That men and women are both equally capable to pursue any passion they have?
Here’s a riddle for you: a father and son are in a bad car accident, and the father dies immediately. The boy is taken to the nearest hospital and into the operating room. The surgeon enters, looks at the patient, and says, “I can’t operate on this boy, he’s my son.”
How is this possible?
While to the vast majority of people it would be clear the riddle’s answer is that the surgeon is the mother, the fact that the answer is supposed to trick and surprise shows how much gender norms still permeate the way we view the world. This riddle confronts the cold hard truth that there are significantly fewer women in the medical field than men and therefore our minds don’t jump to a woman when we are asked who the surgeon is. The women who assume roles in the medical field are the ones seen as “breaking away,” but with the amount of gender movement that has occurred and is still going on, when are females in medicine going to be accepted alongside their male counterparts? In order to learn more about the gendered environment in the medical field, I spoke to my very own stunning mother, a pediatrician at a Santa Clara clinic.
When I asked my mother about her experience as a female doctor, the first thing that came to her mind took her all the way back to medical school.
“I became aware that I was a woman in a man’s world when we were 30 women among 100 or more men,” she said, “And they told us to look to our left and right, and that only one of us would make it [to the end].”
My mother descried the moment as intimidating – to be surrounded by so many men and knowing she would always be the minority. In medicine there is always a “hierarchy,” and because she entered the program young, she was subject to those expectations—but “being a woman added to it even more.”
Part of the process was rotating in different specialties to find which each person enjoyed or excelled at. In particularly taxing rotations such as surgery, she was “the one who had to get the coffee for the men,” because of the gender and status norms in place in the hospital.
Hearing this made me realize the patience and passion my mother had through her entire process, able to see these unfair patterns and push through them to be able to pursue her dreams.
Thinking back to the riddle, the surgical position of the mystery character is key because it is one of the more segregated branches of medicine.
My mother pointed out that a large portion of women in medicine end up in clinical pediatrics over specialties like surgery for a variety of reasons: the lifestyle they offer, the type of patient it engages, and unfortunately for some, the gender bias present. Many more intense fields available are saturated with older males, who become role models for the younger men starting their careers, which creates a long pattern of male dominated working environments. She expressed that she did not decide against a specialty such as surgery just because it is male dominated, but because of how rigid and strict the lifestyle is, and she was looking for something that allowed for the flexibility of family life. Later, we entertained the idea that maybe surgery is so rigid and strict because it is male dominated, and the responsibilities of life outside the workplace don’t always fall under the gender norm of a man.
For example, inflexibility in certain medical fields during pregnancy and early motherhood could deter a woman from pursuing medicine if she also wishes to build a family. There is no denying that it is not just women who fight for families but women are the ones who must quite literally carry the weight of a child. Leaving work for maternity leave or taking time off for the demands during their childhood can cause mothers to fall back in requirements and decrease the amount of opportunities as their male counterparts who are not expected to take paternity leave.
When I asked her what she would change about the medical world to better the situation for women, she focused on this path of motherhood. For her, finding the balance between her own personal career goals and aspirations and the desire to build her family was crucial and she was able to find it in pediatrics.
The female doctors we see on TV are often depicted as aggressive, competitive, or even unemotional. In Grey’s Anatomy, they rarely leave the hospital and rely on many resources to adequately care for their children. They create the idea that in order to be a doctor, you must sacrifice a balanced life. My mother said that her desire to have a family affected the decision she made in her medical path, but even though she “chose a field that makes it easier, at the beginning you still have to put everything away.” Because of how hard it is to be a mother and maintain such a demanding career, she said that she would change the flexibility for women to pursue medicine and the other facets of their lives they dream for.
Equality of opportunity, pay, and respect were some of the topics that came up and she helped me realize that even though the issues are discussed, it doesn’t mean things are being fixed. Women who want to start families must either wait years or put their career on hold. Women getting paid less than their male counterparts must fight to get equal pay. And women who are discouraged from chasing male dominated fields must work harder to earn the respect they deserve. Each woman is different, and each woman in medicine follows her own dreams. It’s crucial that our society rid itself of the discrimination plaguing our genders due to irrelevant norms put in place.
Women in medicine are amazing people who possess courage, patience, and strength. Women, who instinctually care for others, thrive in these environments, but are too often pushed away from the idea because of discriminating ideas, judgmental environments, and inflexible lifestyles.
As a women who has seen this all first hand, my mother summed up why women in medicine are not only constructive but needed:
“It would be a shame and a disservice to everyone to not make it easier for women to be in the medical field because women are natural healers, compassionate, and attracted to professions in which they can help people. But in order for them to help those people, they need to be helped in return to pursue it.”
She gave me a lot to think about but mostly made me feel so grateful for every inspirational woman who has fought for her dreams, her rights, her family, and her passions. Thank you to all of you for setting the example of the types of women we can all be.