So it’s International Women’s Week, and I feel . . . okay . . . so? And? Yes, you’ll read this and decide I’m the oddball here, the one ornery curmudgeon in the bunch when it comes to celebrating women and women’s accomplishments.
But here’s my dilemma: International Women’s Week means very little to me. I had no women role models. No women inspired or mentored me. No women helped me along the way. Not a single woman was in my corner. If I succeeded in medicine at all—my first profession before I turned to writing—I succeeded in spite of being a woman.
There you go, short and sweet.
Now, I’m not being woe-is-me here, nor am I one of those self-hating women. But this was my reality in the late 70s, early 80s: there were women in medicine but not many. I competed and lived and tried to get ahead in a world dominated by men. Other than a single solitary female anatomist, I had no women professors in medical school. Other than a few OB-GYNs, the attendings were, to a man . . . well, men.
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