"A Woman Doctor: Defying Gender Expectations" by Mildred Mayorga
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2017-07-12T10:42:57+00:00
In nineteenth century France, women were limited in the roles they could play, but there were some woman that transcended those barriers and became doctors and/or other major roles. A woman who was able to accomplish that goal had to endure male dominated classes. The woman who is presented on the set of nine postcards is not an average woman, she is a doctor. Doctors were respected at that time, yet it does not mean that women were respected that way. In fact, women were treated very different even though they studied the same things men did. Yet, as James McMillan has noted, female labor had been expanding: “it is clear that the female labor force expanded considerably in the second half of the nineteenth century.” (chapter 11).
As women labor expanded many women were still being discriminated just like this woman in the postcards, who looks like she is around 30 years old, which shows how long she had to study for (its rare for women to be young doctors). She can be seen in a series of nine black and white postcards performing a variety of acts. These acts are common actions that doctors perform on their patient. Thus, it is a variety of her taking the pulse of the young man, hearing him breath etc. As such, these postcards could be seen as an accurate description of what women doctors did in 1900. They had the same work ethic as men however they were not taken as serious as men did. Yet these women emphasized the fact that yes, women can be doctors and can make be just as important as men.
Additionally, these postcards describe more than one story. The first story that the images tell us is of a doctress who is checking a patient. She is taking the next necessary actions to make an evaluation. In the first postcard both the patient and doctress acknowledge each other by exchanging a look. On the next postcard, the young man sets his hat on the table. Transitioning to the next few postcards, the Doctress begins to take his pulse. She also puts her ear on his shoulder to listen to his heart. In the end, she is prescribing something to him. Yet the other story, sets up by the text under the images, describes a love story. In the text, it starts off by the doctor noticing that the young man is very pale. She then makes eye contact while the young man is touching his chest. Then she takes the young man’s pulse while he kneels down and says that her smile will cure his sickness.
If we consider both the images and the text, these postcards tell us that women were not completely accepted as doctors. The postcards showed that the doctress was following the same steps as male doctors did, but in this case the young man was purposely flirting with the woman as if she was not a professional, established doctress. In the text, she also explains that it is not the first time this has happened, so she has gotten used to men trying to seduce her, but she seems to be fed up. The doctress understands that she is better than a simple pretty face, she is a woman who has worked hard and has a degree, and no man can stoop to her level. Even the prescriptions that the doctress prescribes to the young man seem like nonsense since she states that he needs to stop reading. This seems absurd since that will not cure the young man from his sickness. Except of course if the sickness is “romanticism” – well known at the time period to come from reading too many cheesy novels (but this is usually something that happens to women, not to men according to literature of the time! So in this sense, the young man is feminized and also mocked - but indirectly).
Overall, knowing the real meaning behind the postcards outrages me because it makes me aware that these women are more than objects and should be treated as humans who are doing their jobs instead of simply attractive women. In the end it just comes down to the fact that it is not all about history but about “Herstory.” Women have always had an impact in society. They slowly became empowered, they started as mothers, making their way up to working in factories and finally getting a step further and becoming doctors or lawyers. Women are still fighting against these injustices because they still exist and will always exist unless women stand united and continue to impress society.
