Gender discrimination in the medical professions
Gender discrimination in health professions refers to the entire culture of bias against female clinicians, expressed verbally through derogatory and aggressive comments, lower pay and other forms of discriminatory actions from predominantly male peers.
[1][2] These women face difficulties in their work environment as a result of a largely male dominated positions of power within the medical field as well as initial biases presented in the hiring process, but not limited to promotions.
[3][4] Men who are nurses are often subjected to stereotypic treatment as a result of being in a largely female dominated field.
These stereotypes include patients assuming sexual orientation, job title, or not feeling comfortable with a male nurse.
[6] A factor that impedes women's opportunities for advancement in academic medicine is a "stereotype-based cognitive bias".
Additionally, 30.7% of women reported overcoming fear and failure whereas only 19.4% of males reported overcoming fear and failure in education One response to bias against women academics has been to conduct training for faculty and students to recognize bias and change their habits.
[18] Among women who have experienced sexual assault and harassment, 50% stated that this experience negatively impacted their career advancement.
[22][failed verification] Due to their sense of power over their coworkers and employees, they feel empowered to commit acts of sexual assault.
[23] As a result of this, and Human Relations typically functioning to protect the company/hospital rather than the survivor, female physician survivors are unlikely to report their experiences, resulting in future female physicians also remaining silent if abused, thus continue the cyclical cycle of misconduct within the medical system.
Women typically had household obligations that affected their ability to work as much as men and therefore led to a trade-off of higher earnings for family-friendly jobs.
[30] Along with this, female physicians are often paid less because traditional gender norms put child rearing responsibilities on the mother.
[34] In addition to already having a stressful job, research[35] shows that the amount of domestic tasks and responsibilities, as well as family care is still the same.
[40] From a broad perspective, women hold a larger number of leadership roles in politics and in the workforce than ever before in the United States.
These roles may be in research science, health systems administration, professional societies and clinical practice.
In educational systems, women have become more involved in cardiovascular service and in serving as clinical chiefs and program directors.
Female obstetrician-gynecologists face barriers in advancing into leadership positions and earn around $36,000 less a year than their male counterpart.
Although sexism in the medical field has often been associated with women, discrimination has been noted by male populations of obstetricians-gynecologists.
Male obstetricians-gynecologists can be negatively impacted by a patient's desire to have a female clinician for a woman's health care needs.
Some studies have found that female doctors "provide more intensive therapeutic milieu that could lead to more open exchange and comprehensive diagnosis and treatment".
A 2020 study performed by the British Medical Journal analyzed how doctors combined their working lives with having a normal family life.
[50] This study analyzed three different strategies used by men and women in order to cope with managing a normal family life and a work-heavy career.
[51] A 2019 study found that female doctors have higher rates of burnout,[52] while 73% of respondents said gender discrimination "has diminished their morale and career satisfaction".
In a twitter tweet, Dr. Marjorie Stiegle asked her fellow healthcare peers to share their stories on gender bias in medicine.
Some women share their experiences with patients bringing up their body, looks, and the topic of children in unnecessary situations.
Although the tweet was supposed to originally be used for a podcast, it ended up showing the different forms of harassment that women and men face in the medical field.
They run the risk of being labeled and stereotyped, in addition to being relied upon excessively for their strength in lifting patients.
These gender biases and role stereotyping occur because many people retain the notion that caring for others is a feminine task, and thus beneath the status of the male.
The other common stereotype is that men are generally hypersexual and that this will inhibit them from being able to provide intimate care to women in nonsexual ways.
In addition, male nurses find that they are pushed toward tasks that are stereotypically consistent with their gender role.
[65] Despite these drawbacks, male nurses on average make more money than their female counterparts, mostly due to them performing higher-paying tasks.
