Sponsored by the Office for History of Science and Technology (UC Berkeley)
And the History of Health Sciences Program (UCSF)
Naomi Rogers
Yale University
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No Longer Ladies: Feminists, Medical Schools, and the Transformation of American Medicine in the 1970s
In the 1970s as feminism blew apart the meaning of "lady," women physicians struggled to find a way to challenge the professional interpretation of the "good" doctor. Sexualized jokes, belittlement, and harassment were hardly new experiences for American women in medical school, but they had become more vitriolic in response not only to a newly vocal student body, but also to outside feminist activists charging the medical establishment with elitism and racism, and to federal authorities enforcing new laws restricting sex discrimination. Women students sought to transform not simply the system of medical training but the profession itself: they called for updating the culture and politics of the medical establishment, integrating lessons from the feminist health movement about the infantilizing relationship doctors imposed upon patients. Women in the 1970s did not bring gender awareness to the medical school; they challenged what was already there.
4:00PM
Monday, February 6, 2006
140 Barrows Hall
UC Berkeley
Office for History of Science and Technology, 543 Stephens Hall #2350
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-2350
tel: (510) 642-4581, e-mail: diana@berkeley.edu
