---
title: "Women in medicine"
chunk: 5/11
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_medicine"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:03:52.958164+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Glass ceiling ===
The "glass ceiling" is a metaphor to convey the undefined obstacles that women and minorities face in the workplace. Female physicians of the late 19th-century faced discrimination in many forms due to the prevailing Victorian era attitude that the ideal woman be demure, display a gentle demeanor, act submissively, and enjoy a perceived form of power that should be exercised over and from within the home. Medical degrees were difficult for women to earn, and once practicing, discrimination from landlords for medical offices, left female physicians to set up their practices on "Scab Row" or "bachelor's apartments."
The Journal of Women's Health surveyed physician mothers and their physician daughters to analyze the effect that discrimination and harassment have on the individual and their career. This study included 84% of physician mothers that graduated medical school prior to 1970, with the majority of these physicians graduating in the 1950s and 1960s. The authors of this study stated that discrimination in the medical field persisted after the title VII discrimination legislation was passed in 1965. This was the case until 1970, when the National Organization for Women (NOW) filed a class action lawsuit against all medical schools in the United States. By 1975,  the number of women in medicine had nearly tripled, and has continued to grow. By 2005, more than 25% of physicians and around 50% of medical school students were women. The increase of women in medicine also came with an increase of women identifying as a racial/ethnic minority, yet this population is still largely underrepresented in comparison to the general population of the medical field.
Within this specific study, 22% of physician mothers and 24% of physician daughters identified themselves as being an ethnic minority. These women reported experiencing instances of exclusion from career opportunities as a result of their race and gender. According to this article, females tend to have lessened confidence in their abilities as a doctor, yet their performance is equivalent to that of their male counterparts. This study also commented on the impact of power dynamics within medical school, which is established as a hierarchy that ultimately shapes the educational experience. Instances of sexual harassment attribute to the high attrition rates of females in the STEM fields.

== Competition between midwifery and obstetrics ==
A shift from women midwifery to male obstetrics occurs in the growth of medical practices such as the founding of the American Medical Association. Instead of assisting labor in the basis of an emergency, doctors took over the delivery of babies completely; putting midwifery second. This is an example of the growing sense of competition between male physicians and female midwives as a rise in obstetrics took hold. The education of women on the basis of midwifery was stunted by both physicians and public-health reformers, driving midwifery to be seen as out of practice. Societal roles also played a fact in the downfall of the practice in midwifery because women were unable to obtain the education needed for licensing and once married, women were to embrace a domestic lifestyle. In 2018, there were 11,826 certified nurse midwives (CNMs). In 2019 there were 42,720 active physicians in Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Outside of the United States, midwifery is still practiced in several countries such as in Africa. The first school of midwives in Africa was supposedly founded by Dr. Ernst Rodenwalt in Togo in 1912. In comparison, The Juba College of Nursing and Midwifery in South Sudan (a country that gained its independence in 2011) graduated its first class of students in 2013.

== Women's contributions to medicine ==

=== Historical women's medical schools ===

When women were routinely forbidden from medical school, they sought to form their own medical schools.

New England Female Medical College, Boston, founded in 1848.
Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (founded 1850 as Female Medical College of Pennsylvania)
London School of Medicine for Women (founded 1874 by Sophia Jex-Blake)
Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women (founded 1886 by Sophia Jex-Blake)
First Pavlov State Medical University of St. Petersburg (founded 1897 as Female Medical University)
Tokyo Women's Medical University (founded 1900 by Yoshioka Yayoi)
Hackett Medical College for Women, Guangzhou, China, founded in 1902 by Presbyterian Church (USA).

=== Historical hospitals with significant female involvement ===
Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia, founded in 1861, provided clinical experience for Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania students
New England Hospital for Women and Children (now called Dimock Community Health Center), founded in 1862 by women doctors "for the exclusive use of women and children"
New Hospital for Women (founded in the 1870s by Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and run largely by women, for women)
South London Hospital for Women and Children (founded 1912 by Eleanor Davies-Colley and Maud Chadburn; closed 1984; employed an all-woman staff)

=== Pioneering women in early modern medicine ===

==== 18th century ====
Madeleine-Françoise Calais (c. 1713 – fl. 1740) was a pioneer who is referred to as the first female dentist in France.
Dorothea Erxleben (1715–1762) was the first female doctor in Germany and the first woman worldwide to be granted an MD by a university.
Salomée Halpir (1718 – after 1763) was a Polish medic and oculist who is often referred to as the first female doctor from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

==== 19th century ====