Nuanced Sexism: Reflections of a female surgery resident

By Arghavan Salles, Clayman Institute for Gender Research

When do women first realize we are not supposed to be good at math and science? For me, it was during high school calculus class when my classmates begrudged me my position as the best student in the class. I was slow to catch on, though: many children learn the harmful stereotype about women’s supposed inferior math ability early on in their elementary school years.

 Even after I had this realization, I naively did not think the stereotype affected me. In college I majored in engineering. Of course I noticed that my classmates were mostly men, but I did not think much of it. I was even a little bit annoyed by organizations such as the Society of Women Engineers because their very existence made it seem as though women in engineering needed more support than their male colleagues. That, to me, was insulting.

I went on to medical school and decided to become a surgeon. In retrospect, it’s almost as though I was set on defying the stereotypes about women’s abilities, first in engineering, then in medicine, and finally in the medical specialty thought of as the least welcoming of women, surgery.  

Rosalyn Yalow at her Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital, October 13, 1977, after learning she was one of three American doctors awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine that year. 

In many fields the leading thinkers go into academic careers in which they generate new knowledge through their research. In these positions, they have the responsibility of training the future leaders in their field. Over the past 25 years, women have increasingly accounted for a greater proportion of surgical trainees. However, they often do not choose to stay in academics. Indeed, despite one third of surgical trainees being women, only eight percent of full professors in surgery are women. Even fewer of these women go on to hold important leadership positions such as serving as department chairs: there are only three women chairs of departments of surgery in the United States. I carefully consider these stark facts when I think about whether to pursue an academic career.

 … despite one third of surgical trainees being women, only eight percent of full professors in surgery are women… there are only three women chairs of departments of surgery in the United States.