Miriam Gilbert's essay "Women in Medicine" is one of five personal accounts by professional women in the 1970 anthology Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings From the Women's Liberation Movement.
The anthology, edited by Robin Morgan, offers a sampling of feminist writings on political issues, social theory and women's personal experiences. The section called "Women in the Professions: Five Short Personal Testimonies" includes essays about women working in medicine, publishing, television, the military and journalism. Miriam Gilbert, a registered nurse, writes in "Women in Medicine" about the difficulties encountered by female nurses who work with sexist doctors.
Male Supremacy At Patients' Expense
When "Women in Medicine" was published in 1970, a clear majority of U.S. doctors were men; only six percent of doctors were female, according to a 1968 Department of Labor statistic cited in the essay. In Miriam Gilbert's experience, if nurses rebuffed doctors' flirtations, they often found the doctor would conveniently "forget" to write the orders those nurses needed. If female nurses voiced their requests too aggressively, they threatened the male doctor's ego and weren't answered as quickly as those who voiced their requests passively.
"This may seem unbelievable," she writes, "but, sadly, it happens." Why would doctors and other medical professionals be so conditioned to play a game of sexism when patients' lives are at stake?
Gender Roles
Most nurses were women, and a large number of working women were nurses, or they worked in other jobs traditionally held by women. Had they freely chosen to be nurses instead of doctors? Miriam Gilbert says it is difficult to know. After "spending all of her formative years in a male chauvinist society," she suggests, perhaps a woman with an inclination toward medicine would feel her limited "choice" to go into nursing was a free choice.
This double standard affects men, too. Miriam Gilbert says she has seen plenty of men who were "third-rate doctors and would, unquestionably, have been first-rate nurses" if they had not also fallen victim to society's stereotypes.
Mriam Gilbert praises medical professionals who work in teams, an approach that was gaining more popularity when she wrote her essay. In those situations, she explains, technical and intellectual expertise come to the forefront. In a medical crisis, the sex game between doctors and nurses disappears, and everyone pools their skills and knowledge. Afterward, though, the nurse is returned to the position of sexual object.
Ending the Doctor/Nurse Caste System
"Women in Medicine" offers one solution to the problem: "breaking through all the walls of male supremacy." Miriam Gilbert calls for free education for everyone with the ability and sincere desire to begin working as an aide, then as a nurse and eventually as a doctor. The caste system in medicine would disappear, leading to "sexual integration and total medical teamwork."
Statistics reveal a steady increase in the number of female doctors since 1970. According to the American Medical Association and the American Association of Medical Colleges, a decade after the publication of "Women in Medicine" in Sisterhood Is Powerful, 24.9% of 1980-1981 medical school graduates were women. Another ten years later, in 1990-1991, 36% were women. In 2000-01, 43.2% of medical school graduates were women.