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Women in Medicine Part 1
Can women "have it all?" That is, can they be good mothers, wives, daughters, friends, neighbors, and still be good doctors?
Are women as competent as men?
Are women achieving their potential?
What can women do to achieve more?
Q: Hi. I'm a mother of two and a premed student. Instead of studying Organic Chemistry as originally planned tonight, I stumbled upon your ERbook.net site and spent a good length of time reading it (that amount of time will remain undisclosed due to my chagrin).
I was particularly interested in your very thorough and lengthy rhetoric about why women don't maximize their potential. I found your list of personal accomplishments somewhat amusing. It's very apparent to me that you spend a lot of time alone and you do not have the demands of a wife or family. Your question was, "Well, what is the single woman's excuse?" Although I do see your point, I feel like you are missing the big picture. I don't have any statistics readily available, but I believe most women do have families.
I would like to give you an idea of my typical day: I get up at 5:00 AM to hop on the treadmill, study scriptures, meditate, and get to class by eight. I get home at 10:30 AM and my husband promptly hands me the baby, explaining he can no longer deal with him. I help my five-year-old daughter with reading or writing (right now we're working on vowels). Between feedings and diaper changes, I put in an hour of housework and a couple of continuously interrupted hours of studying. At 3:00 PM I commute a half hour to a college extension site to resume my work as a writing tutor. When I get home about 8:30, I put the baby to bed and read to my daughter, then I get one more hour of study time before I turn in at 10:00.
Now please explain to me just where in there I am supposed to be inventing perfect lawnmowers and beautiful sheds? I do dream of making robots. My real dream (and I am not being facetious here) is to program a robot to do housework. I think women are still in their evolution. I think the day will come when women will be repairing engines and discovering more than uranium. Twenty five years ago, men did not do housework and just look at them now. When I turn 65, (I am now 26) I'm willing to wager that these generalizations will no longer apply. I guess we'll see. As soon as my retirement begins, so does that robot.
As a side note, I loved your writing. I would like to ask you what you have done to lengthen your vocabulary. Very rarely do I run across someone with a more advanced mastery of the English language, but you were throwing some whopper words out there for me! :) I would also like to ask you if you have ever considered having a radio program? You are interested in talking about almost anything, and you most certainly have the abilities.
Thanks for the wonderful site.
Melanny
Melanny sent the above question to me after reading what I wrote about the Can women "have it all?" topic on my www.ERbook.net site. To facilitate a comprehensive discussion of this subject, I will copy those postings, and then comment further. This is a long topic distributed over the next several pages. On the following page is a question from another person, and my response to it, that summarizes my position on this matter:
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