As more women enter medicine, it is time to iron out systemic inadequacies, patriarchal mindsets.
One of the lacunae in the documentation of India’s medical history has been the fact that it covers little of the lives and struggles of women doctors. The journeys of Anandi Bai Joshi, Kadambini Ganguly or Haimabati Sen — some of India’s first female doctors — into popular consciousness might have been impeded by the fact that there were so few women who studied medicine in the late 19th-early 20th century that their stories got archived as exceptions. In the last decade though, this has shown a happy remedial tendency. Data from the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) shows an upward graph in the enrollment of women in medicine. For every 100 men, there were 100 women enrolled in medical colleges in 2020-21. This was an increase from 88 in 2011-12 per 100 men to 110 in 2019-20, with a slight dip during the pandemic. There have been other significant — and welcome — departures. More women are opting for what have, for long, been male bastions — cardiology, oncology, neurology.
This upsurge is a welcome alignment of aspiration and opportunity and the work of generations of attitudinal shift. Women are no longer willing to be thwarted by societal expectations of marriage and motherhood or the premium placed on care work at home, notwithstanding their professional qualifications. The AISHE data bears this out. From just seven women against 312 men in 2012-13 in cardiology, the number rose to 78 against 220 men in 2020-21. In oncology, there were just 29 women against 95 men in 2012-13, but in 2020-21, the figures stood at 116 women against 123 men. In neurology in 2012-13, there were nine women against 118 men, but in 2020-21, this grew to 78 women against 173 men.
However, despite the projection that almost half of Indian surgeons in the coming decade will be female, and as the R G Kar rape and murder of a doctor in Kolkata has shown yet again, the system remains unprepared to receive women in its fold. Sexism in the classroom and the workplace, absence of basic facilities such as separate changing rooms and washrooms, inadequate security arrangements and little protection against violences large and small are all functions of a masculine imagination of the workplace. As more women enter medicine, this is an opportune moment to fix all that is broken. It could begin with more women in leadership roles who realise that it is not the late-night shifts that are the problem but the fact that women need to be worried about them in the first place.
Source: Indian Express, 17/09/24
