Why Care?

It may seem a though there is no such thing as a gender gap in the medical field, cause hey around half of the population attending medical school are female doctors right? Even though that is true, it doesn't mean that women are represented equally with other male doctors. The more you go up in prestige and yearly salary, the less females you see holding these positions in the medical field. In a study done by Dumelow and Griffiths, it was seen that 61% of female doctors believed their medical advancements to be barred by organizational culture. Organizational culture is what makes up the stereotypical gender roles that are "supposed" to be performed as women, such as: having children, getting married, and investing your life into your house hold. Cultural expectations change the priorities for female doctors, and they do so without their consent. The social norm of having children and maintaining a household prevents women from picking time-consuming jobs that will make these engraved notions unavailable to them. It is found that the majority of women pick jobs with flexible hours. Because of the difficulties a woman faces to pursue a career of more intensive training and less flexible schedules, the majority of female doctors cannot obtain the highest salaries present in the medical field. Because of this, we see the pay gap between male and female doctors.

Breaking down societal norms within medicine is the only way for men and women doctors to have an equal playing field when it comes to pay, career advancement, and respect. This blog will be a way to put all myths about the "non-existant" gender gap within the medical field.