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I am so very fed up of giving my details over the phone and being asked, "Is it Miss or Mrs?" without the option of Ms, or of being addressed as Mrs by default, regardless of what I've asked them to call me. I rang the Financial Ombudsman today and was greeted with this yet again. I'd actually rung to point out that they'd got my address wrong, but since they added this to having addressed the letter to Mrs even though I'd said firmly on the phone that it was Ms, the guy ended up getting a little lecture on how it's frankly rather offensive to categorise women by their marital status whether they like it or not (and also that if I'm Mrs, then I'm committing adultery and I don't think my partner would be too happy about it all). His excuse was that if he started asking, "Is it Miss, Mrs, Doctor, Reverend..." the list would go on for ever. He just didn't seem to get that Ms should be the default. It's 2009 and this problem occurs more often than not.*
So today I look at the news and encounter Female medics "to outnumber male". This does not surprise me in the least. Due to the way men and women are currently socialised, there are certain professions which have traditionally been male but fit much better with current models of female behaviour, in particular anything which involves caring or pastoral work. You can see the same pattern at work with the clergy: for instance, female rabbinical students slightly outnumber male ones at the Liberal/Reform rabbinical college in London. This doesn't mean that the glass ceiling has been broken in either the medical or the religious worlds (or academia or law, come to that), as is immediately evidenced when you look at the number of women in the higher-level jobs. Still, it's encouraging news.
But do the headlines say "Women outnumber men as medical students but are still alarmingly under-represented at the top of their profession?" No, they say Rise in women doctors "worrying". Women are more likely to work part-time, and the system is not currently all that well set-up for part-time work. The solutions are either a) limit the number of women and/or part-time employees; or b) modify the system so that it functions well with a higher number of part-time employees. The first option is wholly unethical and constitutes gender discrmination. We're meant to be past the stage where a woman can be turned down for a job because everyone knows that she'll mess things up by going on maternity leave just when she's needed. And whatever happened to paternity leave? Parents work, in many if not most cases both parents work, and there are plenty of fathers who would prefer to be able to spend more time with their kids. We need to move away from the assumption that women and women alone are dedicated to childrearing and men are the breadwinners. It's not true, it's not just, and it's buggering up the workplace. It's perfectly possible to relate childrearing to working in a more egalitarian fashion: look at the Swedish system, for instance.
Going back to doctors, I for one have a strong preference for seeing a doctor of my own gender. My reasons for this are personal, but suffice it to say that it's a common preference amongst women, especially when it comes to more intimate medical matters. Men don't seem to be as bothered about this as women are, on average. I don't know how much of this is down to women being more likely to need to talk about intimate matters with medical professionals (issues such as sexual dysfunction which can affect both genders aside, put contraception, smear tests, childbirth, PMS, menopause against prostate and testicular cancer), and how much of it is due to gender dynamics relating to power, fear, respect. There's also the issue of some religions requiring a same-gender doctor for women; I don't know if they require it for men, I've certainly never heard that they do but it would be logical.
Whatever the reason, from a patient's perspective there is a distinct advantage to having slightly more women than men in the medical profession. My GP works part-time because she has a small child, and guess what, I'm still far happier with her than I've been with previous doctors. I know that I can ring my surgery and get hold of my GP within a couple of days, and that if it's urgent I can get hold of a female doctor if necessary (though I don't always bother if it's something basic like an ear infection). My mother has a GP who is much harder to get hold of than mine despite the fact that he works full-time, she finds that he is terribly condescending in a way that's typical of a certain type of male-female interaction, and she'd never feel comfortable discussing gynaecological matters with him. Indeed, she sounds far, far less comfortable with him than I am with my GP, and I think a lot of that is due to gender dynamics. Women are more likely to talk freely to other women they don't know well than they are to men, and less likely to feel intimidated. Women are socialised to listen, men to give orders: it's a sweeping generalisation, of course, but the overall pattern I've observed with doctors and other authority figures does reflect it. If I'm not getting on well with medication my GP has prescribed, I ring her up and chat about it, and she adjusts my medication accordingly. My mother would never dare do that, and considering the behaviour she's reported, I'm not surprised. Most of this will, of course, be down to the fact that I have a stonking good GP and hers isn't as good, and I've encountered plenty of good male doctors and bad female doctors, but I still suspect that gender dynamics remain relevant.
Do I think that men shouldn't be allowed to be doctors? Good heavens, no. Do I think that the increasing number of women in the medical world is a good thing? Yes, and I think it should be encouraged. I also think that attitudes need to shift, and that incorporating more traditionally female values, into what is still a very male-dominated situation, would be beneficial. Put bluntly, we need fewer doctors who think they are God and more doctors who are willing to let their patients talk about anything they need to.
I'm curious to see how other people feel about this, so here is a little poll. I've tried to make it as flexible as possible, which is always tricky. Forgive me if I've messed up anywhere. For the sake of simplicity, the gender options are male, female and other. You may wish to pick "other" if you identify primarily as one gender but your experience has encompassed more than that.
* Apart from that glazier who addressed a letter to me as Mr, which was somewhat startling. Between that and getting my flat number wrong, I decided that I didn't trust them to get the measurements for my window right.
[Poll #1410333]
So today I look at the news and encounter Female medics "to outnumber male". This does not surprise me in the least. Due to the way men and women are currently socialised, there are certain professions which have traditionally been male but fit much better with current models of female behaviour, in particular anything which involves caring or pastoral work. You can see the same pattern at work with the clergy: for instance, female rabbinical students slightly outnumber male ones at the Liberal/Reform rabbinical college in London. This doesn't mean that the glass ceiling has been broken in either the medical or the religious worlds (or academia or law, come to that), as is immediately evidenced when you look at the number of women in the higher-level jobs. Still, it's encouraging news.
But do the headlines say "Women outnumber men as medical students but are still alarmingly under-represented at the top of their profession?" No, they say Rise in women doctors "worrying". Women are more likely to work part-time, and the system is not currently all that well set-up for part-time work. The solutions are either a) limit the number of women and/or part-time employees; or b) modify the system so that it functions well with a higher number of part-time employees. The first option is wholly unethical and constitutes gender discrmination. We're meant to be past the stage where a woman can be turned down for a job because everyone knows that she'll mess things up by going on maternity leave just when she's needed. And whatever happened to paternity leave? Parents work, in many if not most cases both parents work, and there are plenty of fathers who would prefer to be able to spend more time with their kids. We need to move away from the assumption that women and women alone are dedicated to childrearing and men are the breadwinners. It's not true, it's not just, and it's buggering up the workplace. It's perfectly possible to relate childrearing to working in a more egalitarian fashion: look at the Swedish system, for instance.
Going back to doctors, I for one have a strong preference for seeing a doctor of my own gender. My reasons for this are personal, but suffice it to say that it's a common preference amongst women, especially when it comes to more intimate medical matters. Men don't seem to be as bothered about this as women are, on average. I don't know how much of this is down to women being more likely to need to talk about intimate matters with medical professionals (issues such as sexual dysfunction which can affect both genders aside, put contraception, smear tests, childbirth, PMS, menopause against prostate and testicular cancer), and how much of it is due to gender dynamics relating to power, fear, respect. There's also the issue of some religions requiring a same-gender doctor for women; I don't know if they require it for men, I've certainly never heard that they do but it would be logical.
Whatever the reason, from a patient's perspective there is a distinct advantage to having slightly more women than men in the medical profession. My GP works part-time because she has a small child, and guess what, I'm still far happier with her than I've been with previous doctors. I know that I can ring my surgery and get hold of my GP within a couple of days, and that if it's urgent I can get hold of a female doctor if necessary (though I don't always bother if it's something basic like an ear infection). My mother has a GP who is much harder to get hold of than mine despite the fact that he works full-time, she finds that he is terribly condescending in a way that's typical of a certain type of male-female interaction, and she'd never feel comfortable discussing gynaecological matters with him. Indeed, she sounds far, far less comfortable with him than I am with my GP, and I think a lot of that is due to gender dynamics. Women are more likely to talk freely to other women they don't know well than they are to men, and less likely to feel intimidated. Women are socialised to listen, men to give orders: it's a sweeping generalisation, of course, but the overall pattern I've observed with doctors and other authority figures does reflect it. If I'm not getting on well with medication my GP has prescribed, I ring her up and chat about it, and she adjusts my medication accordingly. My mother would never dare do that, and considering the behaviour she's reported, I'm not surprised. Most of this will, of course, be down to the fact that I have a stonking good GP and hers isn't as good, and I've encountered plenty of good male doctors and bad female doctors, but I still suspect that gender dynamics remain relevant.
Do I think that men shouldn't be allowed to be doctors? Good heavens, no. Do I think that the increasing number of women in the medical world is a good thing? Yes, and I think it should be encouraged. I also think that attitudes need to shift, and that incorporating more traditionally female values, into what is still a very male-dominated situation, would be beneficial. Put bluntly, we need fewer doctors who think they are God and more doctors who are willing to let their patients talk about anything they need to.
I'm curious to see how other people feel about this, so here is a little poll. I've tried to make it as flexible as possible, which is always tricky. Forgive me if I've messed up anywhere. For the sake of simplicity, the gender options are male, female and other. You may wish to pick "other" if you identify primarily as one gender but your experience has encompassed more than that.
* Apart from that glazier who addressed a letter to me as Mr, which was somewhat startling. Between that and getting my flat number wrong, I decided that I didn't trust them to get the measurements for my window right.
[Poll #1410333]
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no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 01:17 pm (UTC)From:99% of the time I really don't care what gender my doctors are, I care that they're good doctors, who listen, respect, and treat me well. I would, though, just once like to get to see a female gynecological specialist, though, because they're *always* guys, and that's ever so slightly weird.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 01:31 pm (UTC)From:The GP who missed that my mother had breast cancer was female, I wonder what exactly she was doing? I was 11 at the time, so all I know is that she should have spotted it and didn't.
My guess is that some people are bothered about this, some aren't, and that women are more likely to be bothered about it, especially those in certain situations (e.g. bad experiences with doctors, sexual assault survivors etc.). I doubt we'll get enough of a sample, but I'd suspect that this is even more of an issue for trans folk. I know that homophobia is an issue, I've experienced it several times myself, including the GP who made a remark about "revolting faggots".
It may be worth mentioning that a friend of mine who's a doctor reported a hell of a lot of sexism as well as racism in medical school and the NHS, including lecturers publicly sexually harassing the female students. It's one of the reasons why she decided against going into anaesthetics, she just couldn't stand the surgeons, who are renowned for being a boys' club and a badly-behaved one at that. From what she said, the doctors who are caring and attentive make better doctors, but the ones who are loud and pushy get ahead.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 01:25 pm (UTC)From:I've had internal exams done by 4 female doctors/nurses and 3 of them actually told me off for wincing and that it didn't hurt really which, since I wasn't impeding them from doing the exam, I thought was frankly a bit silly. I've had internal exams done by 3 male doctors/nurses and all were as pleasant as internal exams are ever going to be.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 01:49 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 01:27 pm (UTC)From:... Okay, I could keep ranting about this until the cows come home. I'll just go look at the rest of the post instead now.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 01:53 pm (UTC)From:Other pet peeve: "partner" is pretty well used in the UK by now, but I still get an awful lot of people assuming that D is my husband, even if I've just said "partner" and sometimes even when I've just said "boyfriend". No one's said "you should consult your husband about this" yet, though, which is good as I'd probably have murdered them with my walking stick.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 02:13 pm (UTC)From:[Someone - in Italy - once addressed me as the wife of the friend that I was out for lunch with. I think he was actually surprised that it made me so angry and I got so rude. My friend thought it was funny. My sudden stream of insults, that is.]
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 02:40 pm (UTC)From:I didn't know you don't use titles at all. What an excellent way of doing things. I mean, the main titles denote gender and sometimes marital status, and why is it necessary to point those things out? The UK hasn't always had this system, and I do wonder how the change came about. A few centuries ago, the default title for women was "Mistress" and it didn't reveal marital status. We're used to the pattern of using a single name, with title if it's the surname, in this country, but there's no real reason why we have to apart from habit. I've been listening to Lindsey Davis' Falco novels (ancient Roman sleuthing), and it's interesting to note the patterns there. The narrator is Marcus Didius Falco. Some people call him Falco, those who know him a bit better call him Marcus Didius, and the ones who are very close call him Marcus (or Uncle Marcus). His partner just seems to be known by her first two names, Helena Justina to most people and Helena to the very close ones. Just as with Russian patronymics (incidentally, are those still used, or am I getting side-tracked by nineteenth century novels?), it's not really that unwieldy. We seem to be obsessed with shortening names in this country: how often do you run into someone called Elizabeth rather than Liz or Beth or what have you? I have no idea why.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 05:43 pm (UTC)From:The most common thing to do, really, is using just the first name, whether you're addressing you're best friend, your teacher or you boss. Last names are used in address mainly if two people have the same first name, and you want to make it clear who you're talking to. I've actually no idea about the Russian patronymics. I've always imagined that they still were in use, but like you said - I might have got that solely out of Dostoevsky, and he's probably a bit out of date by now.
[My first name has three syllables when pronounced correctly. I don't mind the fact that English people have an easier time just dealing with two, but must they shorten it to just one?]
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 02:48 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 04:39 pm (UTC)From:Why people are interested in my marital status so much is beyond me. I'm tempted to start signing my name with all my qualifications after instead, that would probably earn me the respect I'm not currently getting on account of my 'single' status (another pet peeve: rarely is there the option for listing yourself as 'partnered' although some do now - my maternity notes spring to mind).
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 05:18 pm (UTC)From:I've had quite a few people tell me that people will assume I'm divorced if I call myself Ms, do you get told that as well? Of course, I also get helpful people telling me that people will think I'm an alcoholic if I don't drink, so I'm not really too bothered by such nonsense.
"Living together" seems to come up quite a lot as an option these days. I think you're right, "partnered" (as used in Le Guin's The Dispossessed) would probably be the best catch-all term. Although why on earth does everyone need to know one's relationship status, as you say? I can just about see situations where it might be relevant, for instance needing to know a contact in case of emergency, but even that doesn't have to be about your love life. OK, it'd probably be relevant in cases relating to something done jointly, such as children, but surely in those cases the form would need far more than a simple box declaring marital status.
There's a nice Margaret Drabble from, hmm, several decades ago anyway, called The Millstone. In it a young woman unexpectedly gets pregnant from her only sexual encounter and quite peacefully settles into single (really single) motherhood. She is rather peeved when she finds that her medical notes at the hospital call her Mrs even though she explains that she's unmarried, and is told, "Oh, we call all the women in the maternity ward Mrs, it's a courtesy title." Hint: you should be ashamed of being an unwed mother, you slut you, but we're generously going to cover up for you.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 01:31 pm (UTC)From:My mum had a male gyno/obstretrician for my sister's birth who kept telling her to go home - "I'm a doctor and I'm telling you the baby won't be here for two days". My mum: "I'm a woman who has given birth twice and I'm telling you the baby will be here this afternoon." Which she was. The doctor missed it because he'd wandered off somewhere
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 01:47 pm (UTC)From:re: doctors - i usually see nurse practitioners. i've seen them for years and am comfy with them.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 04:15 pm (UTC)From:I don't have a preference for a doctor's gender on most occasions (although I've asked for a female GP before, and never had a problem with getting one). With that said, the only people in my life I've ever heard use 'Mr Right' unironically were doctors - two of them, on unrelated separate occasions! Difficult to know quite what to say to "Well, if you ever find Mr Right and decide to have children..." ("How about I focus on my personal life, and you focus on telling me how hereditary my rare genetic condition is? Why don't we play to our strengths, here?") I wasn't hugely offended, but I did find it a bit odd - same as with the female GP who phrased the usual "Are you sexually active?" question as "Do you have a boyfriend at the moment?" Um, there's about half a dozen reasons why those aren't quite the same question...
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 05:06 pm (UTC)From:Doctor: Are you sexually active at the moment?
Patient: Yes.
Doctor: What form of contraception are you using?
Patient: We're not.
Doctor: Oh. Oh dear. You do know that the withdrawal method really isn't all that accurate?
Patient: There's nothing to withdraw. I'm with a woman.
Alas, that was a friend. The nearest I got was answering the contraception question by saying that it was a girlfriend, not a boyfriend, so I didn't get the pwnage. Nor did the doctor blink twice. I've encountered homophobic doctors a few times, but thankfully not while discussing anything related to my reproductive system. I wish they'd make a point of training all doctors to use terminology that does not presuppose sexual orientation, or anything to do with sexuality, really. Even better, use phrasing that actively makes it clear that all forms of relationship are welcome (and I bet the poly folks in particular would appreciate this). I've met some who are fantastic in that respect, and it always makes me do a little unseen hop of joy, just as I did when I saw leaflets about lesbian safer sex up in the Family Planning Clinic.
I'd be so tempted to respond with, "How do you know I'm not gay?" to anyone making noises about Mr Right. Actually, it's not so much the presumption of heteronormativity, it's more the implied nice cosy little story about how every girl is longing to meet Mr Right and settle down and have babies with him. And yes, utterly irrelevant to a discussion about eye conditions. Which is maybe why they went for the coy phrasing, but it's just...odd. I bet they wouldn't be burbling on about Mr Right if you went in there after cancer wanting to know about how likely it was to be hereditary.
I would so love to be able to respond with a haughty, "It's Doctor, actually"! I'm getting tempted to respond to the next person who asks me "Miss or Mrs" with "Are you married?" but I probably won't. Though I'd be curious to see what would happen if I refused to answer the question, since it really is none of their business what my relationship status is.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 05:55 pm (UTC)From:Hell yes to the idea of more doctors talking to patients about sexual relationships with the knowledge that there's lots of different kinds of relationship they could be having!
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 06:35 pm (UTC)From:I've only once had a male doctor be creepy at me. Unfortunately (and perhaps unsurprisingly) he was a gyno. Gah. *shudders* He was horrible.
When I had sexual health testing done last summer with the whole Being Actively Poly thing, I saw a very posh, polite, middle-aged male doctor who had never even heard of polyamory but worked it out from the Latin and Greek! I explained the pertinent details to him, and he was really rather approving and intrigued. :-)
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 11:13 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: Thursday, 4 June 2009 02:15 pm (UTC)From:I've heard a few instances of doctors being rather too pushy in this respect, though often with good intentions. My former osteopath had a complete git of an ex-fiancé who jilted her practically at the altar and left her with an STI to boot. When she went to the doctor to get it sorted out, the conversation ran:
Doctor: How many sexual partners have you had?
Patient: One.
Doctor: Are you sure?
I don't think you lose count at one! Presumably this was code for "you can tell me, you know", but there are less condescending ways to say it.
The other was a friend (either
no subject
Date: Thursday, 4 June 2009 02:20 pm (UTC)From:I've also had condoms pressed onto me unwanted; my health visitor dropped round the other week to check up on Freda, and she asked what we were doing about contraception. I replied it wasn't needed because we aren't having sex, full stop; later on she pushed an envelop full of condoms through the letterbox. I can't think of a more insulting way to be told "I don't believe you."
My psychiatrist at least is quite happy to simply confirm I'm not bothered by being asexual and leave it at that.
no subject
Date: Thursday, 4 June 2009 04:12 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: Thursday, 4 June 2009 04:49 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: Thursday, 4 June 2009 05:58 pm (UTC)From:It's reminding me of how people respond to the fact that I have absolutely no desire to drink or use drugs of any kind (well, I'll put up with feeling a bit stoned on painkillers if they actually work, but I generally find it to be a nuisance), and never have. I recognise that most humans have the desire for such things, and I admit to being a bit suspicious since they can quite easily turn troublesome, but generally I'm just not bothered, and am quite bewildered by the accusations I sometimes get of being puritanical or how I must be an alcoholic. I just don't tick that way. My partner's pretty similar: he likes coffee and has perhaps a few alcoholic drinks a year, but generally he's simply uninterested. I suppose one obvious difference is that sexuality is of clear biological importance to the species overall, although it doesn't need to be at the high level that is the norm for humans, whereas desire for drugs isn't. Come to that, what use *is* the desire for drugs? Social bonding?
Are there any interesting explorations of asexuality in literature? So far, all I can think of is Harpman's I Who Have Never Known Men, though I'm not sure how positively asexuals would view that one (sci-fi novel in which a woman who has had no physical contact with others since the age of three grows up with no desire for physical contact or intimacy, and is perfectly happy that way).
I'm now curious about wherther asexuals like the all-important activity of snuggling, but a) I imagine that depends on the individual and b) I should probably stop asking such impertinent questions! Oddly enough, I think I find it easier to envisage liking snuggling but not sex than I do to like sex but not snuggling. Thanks for the link, it's a good site.