Week 7: Sexism in Medical History

 In recent history, women have been barred from practicing medicine. From being outright banned from being licensed in the seventeenth century to derogatory comments from professors and classmates in more recent times, women have been made to feel like they don't have a place in the medical field. However, women are the backbone of medicine. Before there were Physicians, towns relied on wise women for medical needs. Women spent most of their time in the kitchen, and during that time they came up with cures for many common ailments. Particularly poor people relied on these wise women in later years, and in earlier times there were many accounts of royalty relying on wise women for their medical needs. One example of this is Louise Bourgeois, who was the midwife to the Queen of France in the 1600's and wrote a guide for her daughter on medicine. Some wealthy women had their own distillery rooms for making medical experiments, such as Countess Alethia Talbot Howard, who advanced Paracelsian Chemistry. Women in the 1600's shared recipes for medicine and observations. One common study used violet syrup to study PH levels, which Robert Boyle used for the base of his experiments. Wise women such as Hannah Wolley had already discovered all of his findings but did not gain credit for it as they were not licensed. In these society's, women were allowed to practice as wise women. However, when the College of Physicians was created, women were barred out. This caused society to stop valuing wise women, and by that extension barred women from the medical field. Because a women could not get a license, she was no longer trusted by former clients. Many women continued to practice, but only the poor would go see them. This was where women were first majorly excluded from medical society, and it was largely due to political reasons. Another weapon men of high society used to bar women from medicine was accusations of witchcraft. By accusing a woman of witchcraft, she had to face religious laws and her life was likely threated. This stopped wise women and healers from being able to share their knowledge, much of which has been lost due to this reason. The men of society likely decided to accuse a healer of witchcraft due to political reasons, or they believed she had gained too much power in the community. These set the basis for sexism in the medical field. During the duration of the 17th century, women were only allowed to practice as wise women and often faced accusations of witchcraft or rumors which stained her reputation. The first women to go to medical school in America was Elizabeth Blackwell. She sent out applications to every medical school in the country and was rejected by all but one. The one she did get accepted by first required that the entire student body, which was all men, had to vote to let her in and it had to be unanimous. The students voted, and Elizabeth was able to attend. She was thoroughly educated and did well. However, she was asked to leave when discussing men's health, despite the men going through women's health, which she declined. She graduated from Geneva Medical College in January 1849 and became the first women on the medical register on the General Medical Council later in her life. Though women were allowed to attend medical school from then on, it was still incredibly difficult. Three women paid John Hopkins University 500,000 dollars to save the facility in 1893, on the requirement that women must be allowed to attend. The first black women to graduate medical school was Geneva Lee Crumpler in 1864. And contributing to the lack of women being studied in medical studies was the FDA recommending women who could become pregnant by even the smallest chance to be excluded in medical studies in 1977, which wasn't lifted until 1993. Society has also affected what medical positions women are considered in, with the social norm being women as nurses and men as doctors, which still affects how women apply to medical school. Women also are paid less as doctors, with 87 cents to a dollar their male counterparts make. This is in despite of the fact women do more, making more medical orders, discussing care more, and spending longer times with the patient. Women started medicine, so barring them from practicing and receiving the same pay is ridiculous. In order to fix these problems, analyzing how much the doctor does in order to determine their pay rate is in order, as well as normalizing women being doctors as well, not just nurses. 

sources:

Study finds female doctors work harder for less money Maggie Fox By Maggie Fox, CNN Updated 9:25 AM EDT, Thu October 1, 2020

Elizabeth Blackwell, Edited by Debra Michaels, PhD, National Womens History Museum, 2015

Forgotten Women: Witches, Healers, and Medicine Women by Gerit Quealy, Huff Post, May 17th 2011