Slovakia has long been criticized as an EU country
with greater gender inequality, especially when it comes to the pay gap, than
many others. Do you think this applies
to doctors and especially specialists and surgeons? What causes sexism in this particular workplace and what can be
done to combat it? Do you admire female
doctors? Do you prefer them?
Unfortunately, gender inequality, especially the gender pay gap, is one of the most debated social issues in Slovakia. According to Pravda, in 2013, Slovak women earned on average approximately 20% less than men. The percentage is considerably higher than the European Union standard which is at least alarming.
ReplyDeleteAs we could read in the article, a study found that even though the women accounted for the number of hours worked and the years of experience, in spite of the fact they work at the same position and have the same qualification as the men, their pay, in vast majority, is lower.
The question is: ‘Why? ‘
Although I don’t understand the reasons for underpaying and undervaluing the women gender at all, I will at least try to think of a few arguments or reason for it.
The first thing, which I read about few months ago, is the women character. As the consequence of the commonly known gender inequality, women are less self-confident than men. While deciding what salary or pay they should ask for at the job interview, they usually take into consideration their positive and NEGATIVE aspects too and make a sensible decision. Sad to say, men usually think of themselves as of small gods on the Earth without any imperfections which gives us the first reason why the salaries of the two genders vary. Moreover, women are believed to be shrill, emotional and soft which can be one of the reasons interviewers can be influenced by.
Another reason of gender pay gap, according to the article, is the general fact that women carry a larger amount of home responsibilities. Women are those who form the warmth-of- home atmosphere, those who need to cook, clean, iron, bring up children and moreover look perfect in order to be liked by their husbands. This could be the reason why they don’t possess as strong the desire as men and tend to be less determined and focused on the career.
But is there any hope for us, the women? In my opinion, the only solution for this situation is complete change of people’s, especially men’s, minds. The whole society needs to realize that gender inequality is not based on common-sense facts. It is just a stereotype which goes on and on, survives and survives. People don’t think about it too much, they just take it as it is, as a fact, a thing that simply works like this. So if we want to break this curse which was cast on our society, we need to start with us, at our homes and try to form a society without any gender gaps, society where there are no equal and more equal people.
I clearly remember this series of commercials that were aired sometime last year. It showed a woman in supermarket, paying her purchase and the shop assistant always cut or removed part of the things she wanted to buy, like rolled part of the toilet paper, cut part of pants, etc. It was showing the inequality in the simplest way possible so that people would understand the fact, that women are underpaid.
ReplyDeleteHowever I am surprised that even in such developed countries the unequality in medicine is that big. Here in Slovakia I think doctors are more gender equal. Not absolutely, but more, because there are more male chirurgs and gynecologists, while females are mostly pediatricians or nurses. Other profesion that is in Slovakia inequal is teaching, for example the school my mum is teaching they have only one male teacher. I would say it's because men are stereotypically believed to be the ones that make the money and women are working just to help. But it is relative.
I do not want to say that being man is easy but when you make list of man and woman pros and cons, the women come out to have the harder life. From the beginning of the human history, they have been considered weaker, emotional, inferior, less efficient than men… And there is one thing I would like to tell to every employer: when choosing your employees, you prefer younger men because they are stronger, thought to know more than women, and most importantly, they will not get pregnant. But where would YOU be if your mother preferred her career to having a kid? Just think about it the next time when you would like to reject the application of woman because of her gender and possible pregnancy. Mostly probably, this woman is able to handle not only the pressure in work, but also the pressure in the home to be perfect housekeeper and compassionate mother. For example, I have never seen my father doing something useful after he arrived from work. On the other hand, my mom always arrives, starts cooking dinner and tidying up the mess. She has a lot of work to do at home and it is hard to imagine that woman with the same duties wrote her PhD thesis during her short maternity leave. Therefore, so as the writer, I also admire this and all the other women who wanted to do their job properly and to have career, hence, they found a way how to put it together with the family.
ReplyDeleteFurther, in the article, a young surgeon recalled the comments directed towards women (“You need strong hands for this operation” or “Don’t worry your little head about pathophysiology.”) which were unbelievably rude and sexist. So as the statement that the woman in the room of high-level meeting is most likely to be the secretary. She is thought to be the weakest one in the room but in fact, none of those men would be able to run all day wearing high heels and being nice to other people. So who is the strong one now?
Moreover, finding out that only 9% of the Australia surgeons are women was shocking. I tried to find out what it is like in Slovakia, unfortunately, I was only able to find surgeons operating in Bratislava and the percentage of woman surgeon specialists was about 15% which is still low number. It seems that although Slovakia is one of the more developed countries, to woman in operating theatre is still seen rarely.
In conclusion, I think Miška was right when she said that women are less confident than men and that is the main reason why the first woman became dean to lead a top 10 US medical school at Duke in 2007. However, as the article said, it was not because of the not-enough-knowledge. Simply the women are stopped during their way to the career because of the stereotypes and prejudices and fore mentioned family responsibilities. And in fact, it is pity forasmuch some of these women could be better specialist than their male rivals who were favored throughout their path to the success.
From Diana Luptakova:
ReplyDeleteOf course, Slovakia is county not that developed and it can be seen also as the inequality of rights between men and women which also leads to the huge pay gap which is related to every position from cleaning lady to position of director. This is the reason why I think that the pay gap is also in the health service but more visible is the delimiting women to get to higher positions as it was mentioned in the article that only 9% of surgeons are women which is truly low if we compare it to the percentage of women graduates.
I personally find sexism hugely connected with the men’s attitude towards women that is in truth most of the times disrespectful and irrelevant. And I do not see solution that would completely dismiss the sexism from work background but would be truly affected if women were considered the same worth as men. However, this is something I find unreachable these days even though we have already made a great progress.
I think that female doctors are one of the strongest women in the world because they have to overcome not only daily troubles but disrespect and disesteem of their male classmates that are making fun of them all the time and give them no chance to succeed. Then they have the same in the work and despite all these facts they still love their job.
In conclusion, a job in health care is certainly one of the hardest ones in the world and people who lead it to the end can only be proud of self. But the fact is that since it is that hard, men will always think that they are capable of doing it much better than women which I find misunderstandable. Hence, the women are underestimated and underpaid which leads to enormous pay gap and less female doctors. This also influence the percentage of women doctors from all and maybe the one that did not achieved her target only because of the disesteem from male students might have been much better doctor than them.