A recent article published in the journal Academic Medicine attempts to account for the small number of women in top levels of surgery. The article argues that women face a stereotype that their ability is inferior to that of their male colleagues. The stereotype leads to a taxing dynamic: there’s pressure to perform at the highest level — with patient lives at stake — while constantly feeling like others doubt your ability. My research shows that when women believe others endorse this negative stereotype, our mental health deteriorates. Likewise, when we believe men are better surgeons than women, we experience physical health problems, such as gastrointestinal distress or low back pain.
Certainly there may be other explanations for these findings. Some might argue that women are less able to advance in academic medicine because they are less committed to their work than their male colleagues. However, my research has shown that women spend just as much time as men preparing for their daily work. They also perform similarly to men as judged by faculty members. It seems, then, that just as many women leave math majors despite having equal grades as their male colleagues, capable women in surgery leave the arena in which they can have the greatest impact on the future of the field.
In my career I eventually had to face the reality that women are not treated the same as men. Unlike the days depicted in Mad Men, when men were overtly sexist, today women face much more subtle challenges that can be difficult to recognize and counter due to their insidious nature. Ironically, many men who are explicitly supportive of women perpetuate this modern, nuanced sexism by making comments such as, “Oh, I didn’t know you would be interested in working on this project. I thought you would prefer to be with your family.”
Unfortunately, sexism continues to be a problem with very real consequences. Without acknowledging this reality, we impede progress. So, the next time you sit in a meeting where a man takes credit for a woman’s ideas or a woman does all the work on a project for which a man takes credit, think about what you can do to prevent this from happening to your mother, your sister or your daughter.
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Arghavan Salles is a PhD student in the School of Education at Stanford University. She is also a general surgery resident at Stanford Hospital & Clinics. She was a Graduate Dissertation Fellow with Stanford's Clayman Institute for Gender Research in 2011-12.
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