Sexism in Medical Communication

Communication is one of the most essential skills of the medical profession, however, it is a tool through which sexism and gender discrimination are promoted and reproduced. There is often the perception in medicine and surgery that gender inequity centres on lifestyle, family responsibilities, and childcare issues. However, this chapter highlights that deeply engrained biases in medical communication still exist, and are perpetrated by institutions and individuals, women included. Awareness of gendered language must be raised and highlighted in order to make a change. It is achievable to speak in gender-neutral ways that are inclusive and precise as to not conjure biased attitudes towards women in medicine. Social change must be pursued at the level of the institution, the cultural structure, and at the interactional level of gender.

What Difference Gender Makes: Obstetricians in Nineteenth-Century Brazil

Like in most places around the world, childbirth assistance in Brazil was traditionally performed by women. In 1832, however, a law was passed requiring a license for the exercise of medicine, pharmacy, and midwifery. That event marked the differentiation between the traditional and the modern kind of childbirth assistants, leading to an increasing process of medicalization of birth. Hence, the historiography on the subject has pointed out the appropriation by men of a traditional women’s world. This article seeks to understand the gender dynamics in the birthing room by focusing on the new kind of professional that emerged in Brazil in the early nineteenth century: the “graduated midwife.” To what extent was there cooperation or competition between physicians and graduated midwives? How different were their obstetrical practices? After examining the Annaes Brasiliensis de Medicina—the official publication of the Imperial Academy of Medicine—I argue that the graduated midwife was the historical intermediate in transitioning from traditional midwifery to scientific obstetrics. Finally, I conclude that, as a woman of science, the graduated midwife filled the gap that isolated the female sphere of care from the male sphere of science, paving the road for the entrance of women in medicine in 1879.