One of the most interesting fields where gender discrimination occurs is healthcare. Unlike other fields where one gender is clearly given advantage over the other, healthcare is more blurry. Both males and females are faced with unfair stereotypes and expectations, and while certain occupations still clearly prefer one gender over the other, discrimination faced is relatively equal between the two genders. Amongst physicians, women have historically faced discrimination and trouble even entering the field. In the field of nursing though, men have been met with stereotypes and discrimination from both coworkers and patients. While the number of female doctors and male nurses has steadily increased, there still seems to be a lot of gender discrepancy in these two career paths. This blog will evaluate why these stereotypes exist, the degree of discrimination in modern America, and what attempts are being made to end the discrimination.
Female physician collaborating with a male physician
Source
To most people, there seems to be no gender discrepancy in the world of doctors. Most of the doctors I see are women, and I rarely blink twice about whether I am seeing a female or male doctor. So is discrimination against female physicians a sad fact of the past? Unfortunately not. While the statistics are very promising and indicate that the discrimination is beginning to reduce, women are still facing setbacks in the success of their careers and level of leadership roles they play in clinical settings. In 1970, only 7.6% of physicians were female. Today, approximately 30% of full time physicians are women and about 50% of medical school students are female. The vast improvement in statistics is not only promising but also inspiring for other divisions of the workforce that have not seen that quick of an improvement. However, upon diving deeper into statistics, it’s clear that gender still plays an unfair role in the success of a doctor. Between 80 to 90 percent of leadership roles in medicine, like medical school deans, are filled by men, and depending on the specialty of medicine, the ratio of male to female doctors is depressingly high. In emergency medicine, about 62% of residents are men. And in orthopedic surgery, only 4.3% of the board certified surgeons are female. The only fields that women dominate are pediatrics and obstetrics/gynecology. About 75% of pediatricians are women, and approximately 85% of OB/GYNs are female. It is believed women dominate these fields because they are viewed as “female specialties” only. Many still believe the idea that only women should handle children and obstetrics. I find this assumption about women’s preferences to be insulting and only highlights the strong presence of gender roles in all cultures today.
A chart displaying differences in pay between female and male doctors
Source
Similar to the wage gap, there are known and unknown causes for why gender discrimination continues to occur in medicine. Many of the known causes can be explained by gender roles enforced by nearly all societies. As many know, being a physician is a very demanding job, and the process of even becoming a physician is a very long and tedious road. Taking time to spend time with family and friends or even start a family is very challenging as a physician. And while both genders take this into consideration when going into medicine, society often forces women to think more about family and children than men. For example, a premed student at an elite liberal arts college reported that an academic counselor told her “to consider a career that was easier than medicine”. His reasoning was that successfully having a family and job in medicine is difficult. Another female physician admitted that when she told her boss that she was pregnant again her boss told her, “You need to decide how you are going to manage your family vs your career”. This questioning of a woman’s ability to be a doctor because of her duty to have a family highlights the discrimination that continues to exist against female physicians. While a lot of progress has been made in ensuring that women feel comfortable and are able to pursue a career in medicine, a lot of barriers pertaining to gender roles must be broken down before we can truly state that there is no gender discrimination among doctors.
While it has just been explained the many ways in which women face discrimination in healthcare, it is just as important to note the gender biases present in the field of nursing. Traditionally, nursing has always been deemed as a female profession while medicine (physicians) has always been male dominated. However, as more men have begun to enter the world of nursing, they have been faced with some harsh criticism from both their coworkers and patients. This is a relatively new emerging issue, as compared to the world of gender discrimination in doctors (please watch this male pediatric nurse promotional video). Therefore, I was not able to find as many statistics supporting the discrimination male nurses face, but many male nurses have begun to speak out and explain the reason for why they feel wrongly mistreated.
All too often, the ability of a male nurse is seriously questioned even from the very beginning of his nursing career (i.e. undergraduate classes). Many question a male’s ability to be a nurse, especially for men that are of color. As a result, some men in nursing feel that they are at a disadvantage when it comes to promotions and leadership. This may be attributed to the fact that male nurses sometimes experience less hands-on clinical experiences than female nurses. Patients and sometimes even doctors, particularly in the field of obstetrics/gynecology, often feel strongly that male nurses shouldn’t be near the patients. One male nurse spoke of an account where he had to watch the delivery of a baby from the outside of the room while his female classmates were able to play an active role in the delivery. This is disheartening because even if the structure of healthcare changes to allow for no gender discrimination, it will be very hard to change the gender bias until patients are willing to accept that there is no difference in care between male and female nurses.
Male nurse at hospital
Source
As evident, gender biases exist in both genders in many work environments. The field of healthcare is rapidly changing and becoming more diverse, but that doesn’t mean the biases have vanished. Hopefully with time, females will feel more comfortable becoming doctors and males can confidently enter the field of nursing.
Sources:
http://bulletin.brynmawr.edu/articles/oped-linda-brodsky-august-2011/
https://wire.ama-assn.org/education/how-medical-specialties-vary-gender
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/732197_3
This was a great post! I liked how you mentioned gender discrimination for both sides in health care because one usually gets excluded in the discussion. Before reading this, I didn’t even think about delving deeper than basic statistics in medical fields so it was very informative when you pointed out that almost all deans of medical schools are males and that more specialty doctors are males as well, because it’s not something most people even think about. It was disappointing to hear about how the male nurse was not able to help with the delivery because it really shouldn’t matter if the person is male or female. At the end of the day, nurses and doctors are just trying to help patients feel better so their gender shouldn’t determine how effective they are.
I love that you touched on the discrimination of both males and females in health care. I think that you made a very important point that often societal gender soles are the cause of certain biases. Because women are viewed as the more domestic gender, it is noticeable that any profession that is labeled this way is often held by a woman. There is no reason that one profession should be seen as masculine or feminine because both genders are capable of doing any job. I love that men are becoming more and more interested in the field of nursing. Often times if men integrate a related field, it helps women. At the end of the day, no one’s gender should prevent them from being able to save a life.
This post was very informative. As sad as it is, reflecting on myself while reading this, I feel like every time I hear nurse, I think of a woman. My aunt and sister are nurses and have been as long as I can remember, so I am not sure if that is why, but it is sad to think I am apart of the problem. I find myself not thinking of one gender specifically when I hear doctor though, again my pediatrician growing up and current doctor were both women, so if anything, again I think of women first. It is hard to believe that there is such a wide gap in the ratio of women to men doctors. I think it will fix itself over time though as more women are entering the field. Overall, great post. It really made me reflect on myself.