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‘The Doctor in Search of Herself’: women doctors’ autobiographies, second wave feminism, and the feminist women’s health movement, 1976-1987
  1. Elizabeth Evens
  1. School of Medicine, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
  1. Correspondence to Elizabeth Evens; e.evens{at}nhs.net

Abstract

Second wave feminist legal and educational reform contributed to the fourfold rise in the number of women doctors in the United States between 1970 and 1990, challenging the hierarchical medical workplace from within. At the same moment, the feminist women’s health movement (FWHM) identified and protested gendered health disparities, changing medical practice from without. This article analyses five women doctors’ autobiographical reflections of medical training published between 1976 and 1987, during this period of gendered upheaval. In these works, authors shared their experiences of entering a male-dominated profession, addressing second wave feminist concerns about women’s workplace equality. They explored whether women could become full and equal members of the medical professional, but also how women should become members of a profession that mistreated female patients in ways the FWHM sought to address. Through autobiographical writing, women doctors shared experiences that amplified these reform imperatives, while reflecting on their position as agents within an unequal healthcare system.

  • feminism
  • History
  • cultural history
  • Women's health
  • Literature

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Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this study.

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Data availability statement

Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this study.

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Footnotes

  • Contributors EE conducted the research and writing of this article. EE is the guarantor of the article, who accepts full responsibility for the work and/or the conduct of the study, had access to the data, and controlled the decision to publish.

  • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.