Sexual Harassment And Female Doctors

Gender defined roles are continuously adapting to the new societal norms of the era. There is a surplus of historical events that have reimagined the traditional expectations of a man or women.

Coming from a country in a part of the world where being misogynistic is incredibly prevalent and often encouraged, I have witnessed and been around many acts of sexual harassment as well as victims of it. At a very young age, I learned that my first cousin was sexually harassed by her husband’s brother when they were alone and that is when I learned the true horrors of the world. Everyone knew the truth about what happened, but no one helped my cousin, not her husband, her father, or her brothers. Sadly, Where I’m from, a third world country, is not the only place things like this happen. There are acts of sexual harassment even in countries like America in big corporations such as Hollywood. We’ve learned about these many acts through recent

The roles of men and women in society, though they vary slightly from culture to culture, have been forged in such a way that that they have been ingrained in us, while being nothing more than a social construct, and we appear to be unable to shake them. Although we do try to be accepting of change, the very thought of an adjustment in our perceived gender roles typically results in a reaction that is a cross between a cringe for some and a furrowed brow for others.

Contemporary society has introduced this males and although daunted by the other types it has slowly become popular. In alternative society gender roles have been swapped effectively making a more diverse society than what we have seen in past year. An example that reinforces swapped gender roles can be seen in the popular TV show ‘Masterchef.’ During its running time males have won as much as females (not including spin-offs). Masterchef has been a key influence in the change of modern society’s roles, this is because it has been so popular people have started seeing the kitchen, that was originally the females domain, as something any gender can do.

The increased need for more workers has led to less sexist decisions and more decisions being base off of qualifications. “As a result... women's share is supposed to increase from 46.4 to 46.8 percent,” Source A (Zupek). This source state that the amount of men and women in the workplace may soon be equal. A contrary justification would be that certain genders have specific qualities and their careers should pertain to that. Well, this argument can be easily disproved. Anyone can have any characteristic. Even men can have feminine

However, this was not Dr. Beermans last fight with sexism. During her emergency medicine rotation, her and other students were asked if they had ever done a central line procedure (Berman 2014, 395). To her astonishment most of the males raised their hands while none of the women did (Berman 2014, 395). Doctors were preferentially selecting males to teach and perform procedures because women were just there to watch (Berman 2014, 396). At the time when only twenty-five percent of her class was female, and no women had been taught a procedure that almost all the men had been was unfair. This extreme bias in medical education showed just how sexist medical schools were, and how unfair it was to its female students. The most egregious act of sexism was her experience with Georgetown’s apathy toward the female feminism group. These women were being subjected to hate mail, rape threats, and hostile phone calls (Berman 2014, 395). The Georgetown dean refused look for the perpetrator until the women got help from a women faculty member, and even then, all they did was install hidden cameras across from the school mailboxes (Berman 2014, 395). Not surprisingly the assailant was never caught (Berman 2014, 395). This incident of institutional-sexism sadly is not limited to Georgetown, but other medical schools suffer, as well as other social institutions.

Harassment has no boundaries when it comes to race, age, or gender. As mentioned previously, there are sometimes underlying problems when it comes to lower-status positions and high-status positions. Power can be dangerous in the hands of the wrong person and can often be said in the workplace where power can lead to sexual harassment. Debbie Dougherty, an assistant professor of communication in the College of Arts and Science at the University of Missouri-Columbia, did an assessment based on opinions and perceptions of 23 participants. The study was focused around the question “why does sexual harassment occur?” and the most common answer that came up was “power.” One thing Debbie noticed was the fact that men and women had different opinions

Over time, there has been trends seen in particular fields of medicine with regards to gender. According to Lyndra Vassar’s article, there are fields that are made up of majority of women including OB/GYN, family medicine, psychiatry, and pediatrics. This was seen in a fairly recent study in 2013-2014 from the Association of American Medical Colleges (1). However, over a decade ago, according to a New York Times article, the OB/GYN field was not always dominated by women. The 2001 article mentions how 64 percent of doctors in the field were male, but most of the doctors in training were women (2). This field, along with most other medical ones, were mainly dominated by males, as history proves. Historically, males were seen as dominant in our society, however, with time, that view is changing and women and men are starting to be seen as equal. More women are joining the medical community and going into fields such as OB/GYN.

Sexual harassment is discrimination that involves any uninvited comments, exploits, or behavior regarding sex, gender, or sexual orientation. If any type of violation is made by a co-worker, a boss, a work acquaintance, or even a non-employee such as a client, vendor, or contractor, this will be considered unlawful sexual harassment within the work environment. Sexual harassment can create a hostile and uneasy work environment. Sexual harassment includes inappropriate verbal advances, unwelcomed physical behavior that creates an aggressive, hostile, intimidating or malicious work environment for employees. Sexual harassment includes sending suggestive e-mails, notes, and

Sexual harassment in the workplace is a huge problem in recent history. It can happen to anyone and it can happen everywhere. It can affect all types of races, gender and age. Statistics today shows that more and more sexual harassment has become an issue due to the large number of cases presented. Mainstream media becomes consume covering sexual harassment because of the high profile cases. Sexual harassment becomes a topic on various TV shows, and on some major morning radio talk shows mostly everyday. Sexual harassment laws must be strengthened in order to fix what has become a serious problem today in the workplace.

The field of medicine has been constantly progressing through the centuries with surgery, as one of its most fundamental structure of medicine. Cutting people open to find the harm and relieving them of it. But as the field of surgery progress over time; the surgical environment has developed a gender sphere that makes it difficult for women to become surgeons. The glass ceiling is a political metaphor that exists to explain the gender disadvantages within disciplined jobs (The Glass Ceiling Effect*). Women today, regardless of their qualifications face an obstacle that “appear[s] to be a distinctively gender phenomenon” (1) in any highly disciplined jobs, especially in the field of surgery.

The roles of men and women have changed in the last 30 years. In this

As seen in the case study, a court decision may be one way for any company to legally define what constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace, but there are many ways to define sexual harassment. Everyone has different views and tolerance levels towards sexual harassment. When a case of sexual harassment occurs in a workplace, however, it comes down to how the courts define sexual harassment. The Supreme Court defines sexual harassment to be unlawful in two ways. “The first type involves sexual harassment that results in a tangible employment action;” this is referred to as quid pro quo. For example, if an employee complies with the harasser’s request, then she will get a raise. This unlawful act is usually presented in the workplace by a person who has an upper hand, such as a manager, to ensure that s/he will get what s/he wants. Employees are often victimized by fear that they will not get promoted or that they will get fired. They also dread that if a complaint is filed, it will not be handled correctly. “This instance of sexual harassment always involves another violation of employee rights; [sic] wrongful termination.” This would occur, for instance, when “a supervisor . . . tells a subordinate that . . . she must be sexually cooperative with [him] or . . . she will be fired, and who then indeed does fire the subordinate for not submitting” (“U.S. Supreme Court Defines”). [schwinlaw.com]

There are federal laws put in position to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. Most employees sometimes don’t even realize what sexual harassment is are when they are committing this violation. On the flip side an employee may not realized when they are being sexually harassed and when is the appropriate time to speak up. Education on sexual harassment has increased within the workplace as cases are more public and fines are getting steeper.

Even though numbers are slowly rising in the United States, there are still more men in executive positions than women. According to one survey, female workers only made up 43% of legislators, senior managers, and senior officials whereas male workers made up 57%. In congress, congresswomen make up only 17% of representation compared to congressmen making up 83% (Ferrante, 2011, p. 312). Gender stratification is one explanation for the tremendous gap. Ferrante (2011) describes gender stratification as the unequal distribution of opportunities and resources amongst male and female employees. (p. 311) For example, male workers have an increased opportunity to receive a promotion than a female worker. According to Tinsley (2013), women are more likely to receive executive positions when a company is doing well, rather than when a company is suffering. Some companies stereotype that women workers will leave the workforce soon to bear children, limiting their chances of achieving executive status (Ferrante, 2011, p. 316).