‘The Doctor in Search of Herself’: women doctors’ autobiographies, second wave feminism, and the feminist women’s health movement, 1976-1987

Abstract

Second wave feminist legal and educational reform contributed to the fourfold rise in the number of women doctors in the United States between 1970 and 1990, challenging the hierarchical medical workplace from within. At the same moment, the feminist women’s health movement (FWHM) identified and protested gendered health disparities, changing medical practice from without. This article analyses five women doctors’ autobiographical reflections of medical training published between 1976 and 1987, during this period of gendered upheaval. In these works, authors shared their experiences of entering a male-dominated profession, addressing second wave feminist concerns about women’s workplace equality. They explored whether women could become full and equal members of the medical professional, but also how women should become members of a profession that mistreated female patients in ways the FWHM sought to address. Through autobiographical writing, women doctors shared experiences that amplified these reform imperatives, while reflecting on their position as agents within an unequal healthcare system.