Hegemonic masculinity: representation of women surgeons in leadership positions in Pakistan

Abstract

Purpose Surgery is predominantly a masculine profession worldwide and has largely excluded women in leadership positions. This paper aims to examine the representation of women surgeons in leadership positions in Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach Data were drawn from larger qualitative research examining the experiences of women surgeons in Pakistani hospitals. The data comprises in-depth interviews with ten doctors working in the Rawalpindi and Islamabad cities. The participants were selected by using the purposive sampling method and data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings This study included participants from diverse surgical specialties from different stages of their career with two having leadership experience. Based on participants’ perspectives several factors are responsible for this exclusion of women in leadership positions. The most prominent among these were long working hours for surgical leaders, greater responsibilities assigned to leadership positions, gender stereotypes and work–family conflict. Due to masculine hegemony, women were considered less capable and they were expected to have masculine traits to work as successful leaders. Interestingly, some participants had internalized such stereotypes and showed a lack of interest and lack of capabilities for surgical leadership as evident from their narratives. Research limitations/implications The findings of this paper are drawn from the perspectives of ten women surgeons working in Islamabad and Rawalpindi cities of Pakistan who were selected using a convenient sampling method. Hence, the results cannot be generalized to the larger population of women surgeons working in other cities of the country. Nevertheless, this study is unique in the sense that it provides useful insight into the experiences of the women surgeons and their perspectives on surgical leadership in Pakistani hospitals. Academically, it contributes to the global debates on surgical leadership by providing empirical evidence from Pakistan. Originality/value This paper contributes to the larger debates on the under-representation of women in leadership positions in surgery by unveiling the experiences of female surgeons from Pakistan. It calls for the need for structural changes in health management and policy to accommodate women surgeons. Organizational efforts could minimize some hurdles and encourage more women to take on more formal leadership roles. The authors also call for an increasing number of women in surgery to pave the way for creating new leadership opportunities.

Work-life Balance, Gender Role Beliefs, Gender Participation and Women's Representation in Leadership Positions in Public Universities: A Case of Makerere University

“…The findings of this study may not be generalized to other big and womendominated countries such as Uganda where out of 45.74 million people, 51 per cent are women. The current study builds on the suggestion by Kirton [5] and Ali [2] to further and empirically validate the contribution of family, domestic and workplace factors such as work-life balance, gender role beliefs and gender participation on women's representation in a public university setting. This research setting is expected to be more sensitive to women's representation than trade unions in Barbados [5], broadcast news coverage in Canada [3], corporate boards in Australia [4], Surgery profession in Pakistan [2], among others.…”

“…The current study builds on the suggestion by Kirton [5] and Ali [2] to further and empirically validate the contribution of family, domestic and workplace factors such as work-life balance, gender role beliefs and gender participation on women's representation in a public university setting. This research setting is expected to be more sensitive to women's representation than trade unions in Barbados [5], broadcast news coverage in Canada [3], corporate boards in Australia [4], Surgery profession in Pakistan [2], among others. As such studies on women's representation in a developing African and hugely women-populated country like Uganda (females=51 per cent) are unavailable.…”

“…"Indeed, one of the targets of Sustainable Development Goal 5 is to ensure the full participation of women in leadership and decision-making roles. Globally, research shows substantial women under-representation in core professions such as surgery in Pakistan" [2], broadcast media in Canada [3] and corporate boards in Australia [4]. Also, [5] indicates wide incidences of women's under-representation in Barbadian unions.…”

Becoming IELTS Examiners: Demystifying Native-Speakerism in the Area of English Language Testing

“…It does not mean that they are not serious or committed to their job as IELTS examiners, it merely not their primarily responsibility. Such dilemma is faced by female professionals in many places such as in Spain (Merma-Molina et al, 2022), Pakistan (Ali & Sohail, 2022), Hungary (Paksi et al, 2022) to name a few.…”