Picture this, you’re going in for a doctor’s appointment. First, you’re greeted by the nurse and they let you know that your doctor will be with you shortly. Finally, after some time of waiting your doctor walks in and greets you. What do they look like? Did you picture a male doctor and a female nurse? Many may have pictured a male doctor, primarily due to the fact that the medical field has traditionally been male-dominated. Over the years the percentage of females in the medical field has risen, although even in 2020 females continue to face stereotypes, sexism, and misogyny. This past October many in the medical community were angered by an ad released by a popular medical apparel brand, Figs, that was viewed as blatantly sexist. Even being a female-founded company, this brand has shown an example of how what may be seen as harmless humor for one, could actually end up being sexist and very harmful to another. So my question to you is, is this sexist? Or are people just being overly sensitive?
I came across this ad while scrolling through social media. I am a dental hygienist and have been aware of this popular scrubs brand for quite some time as many influencers and known people in the dental/medical field wear their brand. In the ad a female doctor walks into the frame wearing their signature pink scrubs, it shows that she is holding a “Medical terminology for dummies” book, upsidedown, and focuses on her badge, which distinctly reads “DO”. This ad displays harmful stereotypes about women. Putting aside the stereotypical color choice for the model’s scrubs, this ad depicts the stereotype that women are incompetent in the field of medicine. The ad makes a point to zoom in on the doctor’s badge, showing that they are a DO. This insinuation that a female doctor would not know basic medical terminology, let alone not realize they were holding a book upside down is very frustrating. (Ad is seen below)
This is an issue that reminds us that misogyny and sexism still play a role in our day to day lives, especially when companies find it acceptable to post ads like this. This issue hits home with me due to the fact that I work as a dental hygienist and am returning to school to be a dentist. While working in the dental field I have experienced patients request male doctors only and have heard from female doctors themselves the sexism that they have experienced. Female doctors have continued to face a stigma that they are “less than” or somehow not as competent as their male coworkers. This ad only works against the movement to stop these stigmas, although some may see it as a harmless joke.
In our class we read the introduction to Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex”, which discusses othering. The excerpt considers how people are found to perceive some as “the one” and anyone different from this default as “the other”. Simone de Beauvoir refers to how historically men have been seen as the default, and women have been viewed as a contrasting, weaker, “other”. This reading relates to the issue at hand because when people think of doctors, a lot of the time they think of males being the default sex for this occupation. The excerpt goes further to explain that men traditionally have been viewed as having power over women, “one, then, has power over the other”. This can be related back to how women are seen as inferior to men in relation to their intelligence and abilities in the medical field.
Secondly, we watched Adichie give a TedTalk about “The Danger of a Single Story”. Adichie reflects on her life as a child and how only having access to stories about British and American people had an impact on her when she would write her own stories. Adichie only had access to foreign books, and therefore she believed that books could only be about foreigners. Similarly, women have faced the challenge of underrepresentation in the medical field.
In 2014 the Journal of the royal society of medicine posted in an article that “Reviewing both the text and illustrations of 48 books, we were able to identify 145 discrete doctor-patient encounters. Only 37% of the doctor characters were female and 59% were male.” (Smith, 2014) Later on in the article, it states “Workforce statistics tell us 37% of GP partners and one-third of hospital consultants are female but the children’s books we reviewed did not reflect this reality; 70% of the female doctors were portrayed working in primary care or a community setting and 30% in hospital, while the male doctors were evenly divided between primary and secondary care. The tendency to show women in primary care could be interpreted as stereotyping with women placed nearer the home and further from the high-status world of hospitals. Female doctors were more likely to be portrayed taking a history from their patients, while their male counterparts were more likely to be portrayed in undertaking examinations or procedures. To the child impressed by diagnostic technology, the work of the male doctor may appear more important. However, in reality, doctors still remain heavily reliant on history in non-urgent scenarios, and the relative time spent in clinical practice taking a history confirms its primacy in diagnostic problem-solving.” (Smith, 2014) 
Young girls growing up only seeing men playing roles of doctors on TV, in books, or in the media may believe that only men can be doctors. Thankfully today women have been increasingly represented in roles of doctors and are pursuing medicine as a career. According to an article posted by The Washington Post in 2019, women are making up the majority of medical students for the first time. At the time of the post, women made up 50.9% of the student body. (Searing, 2019) When looking into females in dental school I found similar numbers for 2018-2019. The ADA states that “12,822 predoctoral dental students were female (50.5%), and 49.7% (3,135) of graduates of the class of 2018 were female. In comparison, the percentage of graduates who were female was 44.3% in 2008, 38.4% in 1998, 27.6% in 1988, and 11.2% in 1978. (ADA Health Policy Institute FAQ – Dental Schools and Students, n.d.)
While I am pleased to see women making up half of the student population, it makes me think back to a conversation I recently had with a dentist. I am interested in opening up my own business in the future, so I had asked her if she ever planned on owning her own business while she was in dental school. She half laughed and told me she had graduated 37 years ago and at that time females only made up around 20% of dental students. She elaborated that women just didn’t own dental practices so she never dreamed that one day she would own her own practice. Hearing this made me extremely thankful to be living in a day where I can see women dentists owning their own practices and know it is a possibility for me, although it deeply saddens me to think that due to her seeing “A single story” of men only owning dental practices, she didn’t think it was an option for her. She later mentioned that once she did open her own practice people flocked to her because they hadn’t seen many female dentists and assumed she would have small hands so the dental work would be more comfortable, assumed she would love working around children, and that she would be more sensitive to their needs. I found this interesting because just as some stereotypes about women can hurt their success in the medical field, these stereotypes seemed to help her.
In reflection, I do believe the Figs ad was sexist and problematic, and I do believe that women still face discrimination in the workforce by both coworkers and patients. Although, I recognize that there has been a massive improvement as far as representation goes for female doctors and how society views sexism and stereotypes. I am thankful that the medical community spoke out and voiced their concerns about the ad and that Figs removed it and apologized, although it is frustrating that it was approved to be seen by the public in the first place. What do you think? Is the Ad okay because the company is founded by females? Do you think that the harmful and helpful stereotypes balance each other out and make it okay? or do you think that there is still sexism remaining in the field of medicine that needs to be challenged?
Bibliography:
Images:
https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/female-founded-figs-faces-heat-over-a-sexist-video/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4265110/
Video:
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/scrubs-figs-brand-ad-apology-doctor-female-physician-sexist-video-b1053869.html
Sources:
ADA Health Policy Institute FAQ – Dental Workforce in the U.S. (n.d.). Https://Www.Ada.Org/En. Retrieved November 9, 2020, from https://www.ada.org/en/science-research/health-policy-institute/dental-statistics/workforce#:%7E:text=How%20many%20dentists%20are%20female,2019%2C%2033.4%25%20are%20female.
Searing, L. (2019, December 23). The Big Number: Women now outnumber men in medical schools. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/the-big-number-women-now-outnumber-men-in-medical-schools/2019/12/20/8b9eddea-2277-11ea-bed5-880264cc91a9_story.html
Smith, H. S. (2014, December). The representation of women doctors in children’s picture books. Https://Www.Ncbi.Nlm.Nih.Gov/Pmc/Articles/PMC4265110/. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4265110/