Women in medicine: Sexism is not only reason for women's "unequal status" in the workplace

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7468.743-a

BMJ 2004;329:743 (25 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7468.743-a

Letter

Women in medicine

Sexism is not only reason for women's "unequal status" in the workplace

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Heath expresses many misconceptions about womenin the workplace.¹ Women are compelled to look after their children,work part time, earn less money, and do different jobs frommen. Better state support for childrearing, she implies, wouldproduce equality in the workplace.

Many legitimate factors cause sex differences in earnings andoccupations. Women earn less because they work fewer hours,have less experience, work in less-risky jobs, have more careerinterruptions, and attach less weight to salary. Different interestslead men and women to select different jobs.²

Heath complains that men abandon occupations when women enterthem. However, changes in occupations themselves may be responsible.In the United States, pharmacy has become increasingly female,not because women make the profession less attractive to menbut because the profession consists decreasingly of owners ofsmall businesses and increasingly of employees of chain stores.³Men tend to favour the autonomy . . . [Full text of this article]

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Kingsley R Browne, law professor

Wayne State University Law School, Detroit, MI 48202, USA Kingsley.browne@wayne.edu