Death of the Unbelievers
May 27, 2009
by Female Science Professor
|This post was written by a full professor in physical sciences at a large research university. It was originally published on her blog, Female Science Professor. The opinions she expresses are her own, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
In response to a letter from a young female doctor who is having trouble being respected by the older women staff members in the medical office in which she works, Slate advice columnist “Dear Prudence” ends her advice with this statement:
And remember, while sexism may never be completely eradicated, despite your profession’s best efforts, the generation that can’t believe a woman is a doctor will eventually die out.
Shouldn’t they be gone by now? That was my grandparents’ generation, and my last beloved grandmother (who did in fact have strong opinions about what careers were and were not suitable for women) died a few years ago when she was in her 90’s. My parents were young adults in the 1960’s and 70’s, so even that generation should be well acquainted with the fact of women doctors. Even my conservative aunts don’t have a problem with women doctors; some of them have daughters who are doctors. And, since the female staff members who are giving the young doctor such a hard time are pre-retirement age, they are even younger than my parents’ generation.
Perhaps there is a lag time, and with each generation there will be fewer and fewer people who can’t believe that young women are doctors and eventually it won’t be an issue, but I think there is more to it than that.
In my own interactions with staff members (male and female) in academic departments, I have had mixed reactions, ranging from extremely positive (perhaps because I am polite and respectful to hard-working staff members and I do more of my own administrative work than some of my senior male colleagues) to extremely negative (because, I am convinced, of the discomfort of some staff members with doing work ‘for’ a younger woman). In the latter case, the disrespectful, undermining staff have no trouble believing I am a professor, but they nevertheless have a negative reaction to working with me.
I don’t even know what word to use to describe how these disrespectful staff members feel about working with female professors, or how to explain why it matters to them whether they are providing a memo to a male professor or a female professor. Do they feel demeaned? Does it make them feel uncomfortable about their own jobs? Will these negative interactions really go away eventually, maybe when today’s 20 year olds are middle aged?
I would like to think that, but I have seen too much recent sexist behavior from young people to believe that the problem will be solved by generational attrition.
-maybe some of this is less gender orientated and more akin to base emotions of jealousy and fear so universal to the species.
goesh, there is a lot of gender oriented behavior and the female scientist professor makes astute observations. many years ago I was a young female surgeon. will write more, but have to get to work now.
Marille – I find it difficult to believe that intelligent, professional women could be so brainwashed and subjugated by men as to become unwitting mysogynists themselves and I’m not minimizing the rampant and blatant mysogyny that is manifest everywhere. I’m wary of perpetual victims who attribute everything to a single, root cause – it makes for fertile ground to seek saviors and champions and puts unrealistic expectations on those who do rise well above the common and mundane.
The nomination of Judge Sotomayer is starting to have just such an aura, subtle but there. Her nomination is clear cause for great celebration but she sure the hell will not be bringing any kind of personal agenda to the bench, she has no mission on behalf of anyone other than We The People, the collective. I don’t see TNA slipping into the rancor of partisanship over this but it is comforting to know TNA will be watch-dogging the whole process and ready to stomp the head of mysogyny when rears its ugly head.
goesh, but you will believe that male professors can be brainwashed quite easily into being sexist. Just not women. Why is that? We both grow up steeped to the gills in the same sexist culture.
Besides, the men have a nice little strategy for that one: make sure that when you pick a woman, you pick only one. Then, the women will see other women as the competition and start going after one another. Nice little plan of attack. And yes, we may be “stupid” and “brainwashed” enough to fall for it, but if we can’t change the game, WTF are we gonna do about it?
Have you BEEN in academia? If not, then maybe you have something to learn from we who have.
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