I wasn’t best pleased this evening when I read an article in the Irish Times, in which a Professor at my college said that entrance requirements for medicine currently favour women (that is, they require very high points from applicants) and that he would prefer a different system.
This I can deal with. Equality of the sexes and all.
It was his reason for wanting fewer women I have a problem with (currently 70-80% of the classes are female). He said (allegedly) that female medical students “tend to be passive, rather than challenging and questioning.”
I take exception to this.:mad:
And I told him so in a polite e-mail, with a disclaimer in case his views were misrepresented, I also sent an email to my class suggesting they read the article. It was less polite.
I think that’s a pretty broad brush he’s painting with. Certainly there are passive people in all life’s categories.
To really prove him wrong you’d probably need to approach him personally and yell in his ear.
Emilyforce, The Irish School System give out points for your grades in your final exams, A1-100 at honours level right down to D3-5 at pass level. I can list them all off if you like.
The state exams take place in June after two years of studying for them. Apparently females do better in this type of teaching enviroment then males do. I assume thats what the Professor meant when he made those comments, when you take into consideration that to get on a Medical course in Ireland you need close to 600 points, and when you can only count six subjects in the point system, it means 6 A1’s.
I hope that makes sence.
Anyway regards IrishGirl, I think you were right to react how you did. People make far too many sweeping generalizations without thinking of everyone, you were right to email him and tell him what you thought.
I don’t think you over-reacted necessarily. I do find it exceedingly amusing to complain (if I understand your system) that requiring high perfomance on exams favors women.
If “challenging and questioning” is what the professor believes makes good doctors he should advocate admissions requirements that will select for those characteristics (not sure what those would look like), not admissions requirements that select more or less of a particular gender.
That said, it is possible that he does honestly and legitimately observe this diffence between men and women in his classes. He might observe it because he is already biased and only remembers observations that reinforce his bias. He might observe it because there is something about his own behavior that intimidates women and/or encourages men. He might observe it because it is actually there quite independent of his expectations or actions.
There have been tons of books and magazine articles here in the U.S. about the disadvantage of girls in classrooms and how teachers favor boys without knowing it, boys are more outspoken and get more attention, etc.etc., which always sounded suspect to me, because I certainly never felt like boys had an advantage or that it was difficult to make my voice heard.
But then, if I was myself a challenging and questioning girl and unusual in that respect I wouldn’t notice the girls being less vocal in my classes because I would be changing the dynamic of every class I was in.
What if women really are more passive in class? Would you have any way of knowing? More importantly does this keep them from being good doctors?
Will a doctor who is “questioning and challenging” of her professor be the same way with her patients? And will they find this intimidating or brusque to the extent that they feel their own voice quashed and don’t share important information?
Are you familiar with the concept of statistical discrimination? A good example is the fire department that says, correctly, that on average women don’t have the upper body strength to meet requirements, therefore they refuse to screen any women for the job. Of course, there are myriad women who can satisfy the requirements, so the fact that the “average” woman can’t is not a good reason to eliminate the qualified women. Each person should be hired on her merits.
(I don’t know if the average woman doesn’t have the upper body strength to be a fire fighter, I said that he was correct simply for the purposes of the hypothetical situation.)
Althought I have no cites, I get the impression that there is a body of (dubious?) evidence suggesting that female students are more “passive” and less assertive. Supposing that this is true, or at least that his experience seems to suggest that this is true, then he would be advocating statistical discrimination. He wants more men because on average they are more assertive students. He is clearly in the wrong. What he should want are more assertive students regardless of their sex. To that extent it would certainly be fair to point out that instead of advocating entrance requirements that favor men, he should be advocating entrance requirements that favor assertive students and let the student sex-ratio chips fall where they may.
As a medical person, he should also be aware that his anecdotal evidence for student behavior ain’t worth shit, and that proper statistics and “experimental” controls are necessary before such a statement can have weight. One might point out that if the medical profession had never advanced beyond the savage notion that the plural of anecdote is data, then we would still be bleeding people to rid them of the malignant humors that cause cholera epidemics throughout the known world.
So I say that you have a right to be offended. I have mixed feelings on whether you overreacted.
Your experience is not atypical. There was a huge and powerful movement in the 80’s and 90’s to correct this perceived inequity of girls being repressed educationally, and lots of money and programs were thrown at this oppressive patriarchial dragon until it was discovered (interestingly mainly by female social scientists - the male social scientists were too chicken to touch the issue ) that this presumed inequality did not exist, and had never really existed and was essentially created out of thin air by a few influential academic authors, and eveybody jumped on board because this -girls as victims of the system- paradigm “felt so right”.
When some controlled studies were conducted this claimed inequality essentially vanished and the authors promoting the “girls are repressed” movement retreated to “I never said…” stances, and dismissive handwaving directed toward their critics.
Basically, I took exception to the statement because it implies:
a) that I am passive because I am a woman.
b) that this passivity means that I do not deserve the place I worked really hard to earn.
c) that because of my gender I will be a worse doctor than any of the male students.
Some people are shy and lacking in confidence, that can be learnt over time.
Some people have trouble getting to grips with independent learning and would prefer to be spoon-fed information, this usually changes after poor performance in exams.
Some people prefer not to challenge directly, but to use other methods.
Some of these people are women.
Some aren’t.
All of them can learn to alter their behaviour, and very few of them would make it through 6 years of medical school if they were still submissive wallflowers at the end.
They have also show in studies that female doctors have “better” bedside manners than male doctors: show more concern and empathy with their patients and spend more time with their patients. Further, studies have shown that female doctors are more likely to evaluate patients more thoroughly and ask more questions from their patients.
You may have to assert yourself more because it has been such a male dominated field for so long and their associations of women of medicine have been nurses, a “subordinate” role. Many older physicians may not be used to this gender change.
Unfortunately, you & others like you will have to be the ones to show the teach physicians that they are incorrect in their assumptions.
Good for you, irishgirl! I think you handled the situation very well, and I don’t think you over-reacted at all.
It is curious to me that so many med students are female. Does anyone know how this compares to the U.S. system? I know that women are making up a larger percentage of med students, but AFAIK, the profession here is still lucrative enough to attract plenty students of both sexes.
My parents’ doctor is a female who is, by reputation, one of the most thorough examiners of patients in the city and so popular that she hasn’t had room in her schedule for new patients for several years.
I am all about putting the most qualified person in the position, regardless of gender, race, or religious affiliation. If being challenging and questioning is what makes a good doctor, then the screening process should reflect that. If the doctor is just talking smack about women just to get them out of his field, then he needs to be called on it.
