Gender, Work and Medicine: Women and the Medical Division of Labour / Edition 1

by Elianne Riska, Katarina Wegar

Overview

This critical assessment of the division of labour in medicine sets current practice in its historical context. The book demonstrates the centrality of gender divisions both between and within the individual medical and health professions - doctors, nurses, midwives and others.

Drawing on accounts from different countries and a wide range of professional groups, the contributors examine the extent to which the division of labour is changing and the effect of such changes on the status of women within the health professions. While the proportion of female doctors is rising, the continued constraints on women attaining full equality are explored.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803989023
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	08/19/1993
Series:	SAGE Studies in International Sociology Series , #45
Pages:	198
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

Table of Contents

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
Introduction - Elianne Riska
PART TWO: THE MEDICAL PROFESSION
Sex Stereotyping of Women Doctors' Contribution to Medicine - S Muthu Chidambaram
India
Women Doctors in a Changing Profession - Mary Ann Elston
The Case of Britain
Why Women Physicians Will Never be True Equals in the American Medical Profession - Judith Lorber
Women Physicians - Elianne Riska and Katarina Wegar
A New Force in Medicine?
PART THREE: OTHER HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
The Subordination of Nurses in Health Care - Mick Carpenter
Towards a Social Divisions Approach
A Cross-national View of the Status of Midwives - Raymond G de Vries
Health-Manpower Planning or Gender Relations? The Obvious and the Oblique - Arnim[ac]ee Kazanjian
PART FOUR: CONCLUSIONS
Conclusions - Katarina Wegar

Editorial Reviews

A critical assessment of the division of labor in medicine, setting current practice in its historical context, and demonstrating the centrality of gender divisions both between and within the individual medical and health professions--doctors, nurses, midwives, and others. Sponsored by the International Sociological Association. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

'The audience for this book is medical sociologists, policy-makers, planners concerned with health work-force issues, and those who would encourage the professional development of women. The studies not only contribute to empirical knowledge of sex as a factor in the division of labor in medicine, but also challenge existing sociological approaches to the study of professionals... The concluding chapter by Wegar is a masterly analysis both of the preceeding chapters' findings and of the misuse of sex as a universalizing explanatory concept' - The New England Journal of Medicine

'Addresses a void in the literature on the changing character of the medical profession and examines the gendered division of labor in various countries... This book is a substantial contribution to the literature on the organization of work within and between health-care occupations. Wegar's provocative concluding essay places the diverse chapters in a broader theoretical context... A valuable resource for anyone studying organizations and occupations or medical sociology, as well as those focusing more generally on gender stratification. The book contributes to a growing body of evidence indicating that researchers should not analyze the effect of organizational structures on the health professions in gender- neutral terms, and it is an excellent introduction to research on the complex social mechanisms affecting women's representation in health care occupations' - Contemporary Sociology

'I found this a useful and interesting, if sometimes sobering, volume with interesting insights into the importance of gender divisions both within and between the health professions' - Medical Sociology News

From the Publisher