In last week’s post I promised to take a focused look at women in the health care workforce. For both providers and patients, the gender gap has enormous consequences not only for how we understand American health care workers but also for how we take care of them. Society’s best interests require that both men and women realize their full work potential as health care professionals. They must remain healthy, productive, and fulfilled, to afford the rest of us the best health care possible.
The Shriver Report — A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything, inspired by work started by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1961 at the behest of Maria Shriver’s uncle, President John F. Kennedy, starts with one simple factual observation: “For the first time in our nation’s history, women are half of all U.S. workers and mothers are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families.” The first eight sections of the report describe our admittedly weak preparation for, and our lukewarm reaction to, this new reality. Below are the seven sections I will look at in the weeks to come to bring home the reality of women in the health care workforce.
“The New Breadwinners” is an overview of who is working where and why. Women physicians have been segregated into less-prestigious, lower-compensated specialties, and they often encounter barriers of gender stereotyping, harassment, and pay inequality that devalue our collective investment in them.
“Family Friendly for All Families” dispels an important myth that having the same rules is not enough for women. Workplace policies need to be changed to better support women, and nowhere is that more difficult than in the rigid American health care system workplace.
“Invisible yet Essential: Immigrant Women in America” highlights how immigrants, usually minority woman, fulfill the roles of child and elder care providers, home maintenance workers, food producers, and cleaners. Their health care is among the poorest in the nation, and their workplaces are often the most restrictive, yet their own well-being affects many people directly and indirectly in the health care workplace.
“Sick and Tired: Working Women and Their Health” is a broad and highly relevant topic. Employment does not guarantee adequate insurance access. But it does mean occupational hazards, increased risk of disability, and hazards specific to working women, especially those who are pregnant. All these issues need serious discussion.
“Better Educating Our New Breadwinners” examines how women with the same degrees and jobs as men often have lower salaries to start and greater difficulty advancing to powerful or prestigious positions. This is also true in health care.
“Got Talent? It Isn’t Hard to Find” busts the myth that there is only one place to get work done, one model for career advancement, and one leadership style. The halls of academic medicine will be explored to expose the realities and find a more ideal model.
“Where Have You Gone, Roseanne Barr?” Women physicians make up a small minority of women who work in health care. How have women nurses, therapists, and other support personnel fared in the workplace?
“Sexy Socialization” reveals the troubling male and female stereotypes that negatively affect our younger generation. These stereotypes are highly prevalent in health care, and they provide some of the most noxious and difficult barriers to change for women in medicine.
Before I discuss what is real, my next post will take the risk of describing “the ideal.” Only if we know where we are and where we want to be can we create a plan.
This post was written by Linda Brodsky, pediatric otolaryngologist and advocate for gender and pay equity. Her blogs can also be read at The Brodsky Blog.
