We need more female consultant surgeons

evolving_doors wrote: »

Yes but his assertion was that we needed a gender balance because....
Because why exactly?

Oh, i see.

Well my assertion is slightly different, but amounts to the same result as Hyland's - loss of talent (from any cohort) is damaging to a profession/business and needs to be addressed. That is self evident. In this case, the loss is from the large cohort that is female; that needs to be addressed. If one accepts that - and it is self evident - then your question as to why we need gender balance becomes irrelevant.

But if you want to focus on gender balance despite that, then read the article; he gave a number of reasons why gender diversity is - on its own merits - a good thing. These emanated from the report and are the views of a consultant surgeon who has been in the game for 30+ years. They are worth considering.

evolving_doors wrote: »

Yes but his assertion was that we needed a gender balance because....
Because why exactly?

I don't think his assertion was that we need a gender balance, the way I read it and certainly the way it's written is that he is suggesting more gender diversity, hell he's not even suggesting the introduction of quotas or any of the rest of that nonsense,

I think the take-away from the article is that it has been evidenced in other areas and professions that greater diversity among those entering the profession is better for the profession itself, it's better for people who are already in the profession, it's better for their clients (in the case of consultants we're talking about their patients, members of the general public), and it's better for society as a whole.

What the article suggests to me is that the whole medical profession in Ireland needs to change the way it works, in order to serve society better. It's not the first time this has been pointed out, and it definitely won't be the last, because systems that are so ingrained are often the most averse to change, they are resistant to adaptation, and that's where, and when and why they fail, and right now in Ireland the medical profession is in dire need of an overhaul in the way it's not working to serve the needs of a changing society.

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I dunno about that PB, certainly not from my experience at least. While the majority of Irish primary school teachers are women, there's plenty of them are trying to encourage men into the profession because they aren't one bit happy with the status quo.

Having been on the interviewing panel for various teaching positions, I've witnessed some examples of young men whom I wouldn't recommend, but the school principal and the independent adjudicator (both women, the adjudicator is often a retired principal) would nearly fall over themselves to hire him on the basis that he was a man. Any other criteria were secondary concerns.

For years I've had people suggest I should study to become a teacher, and I gave serious consideration to it at one point when the recession hit and the Hibernia was like doing the ECDL - people who were wholly unsuited to teaching saw it as an easy route into a stable career. I wouldn't be suited to it myself for the mind-numbing amount of bureaucracy involved for what has to be said offers IMO very little by way of remuneration - while I absolutely love working with children and I'm passionate about education, I'd sooner do it in an informal, voluntary capacity and do it for free than have to endure what I saw my mother and most of her relatives on her side of the family go through (most of them are a mixture of primary and secondary teachers and lecturers).

It's the same in social care here in Ireland - again a career dominated by women, and there were absolutely some feathers would ruffle when they encountered a man working in social care (some got over it, some didn't), but again it's a career where there are more men in management positions than there are on the ground. I'll still meet women who are crying out for more men to enter social care, but the money just isn't worth it IMO. Again it's something I do voluntarily rather than get bogged down in the bureaucracy for little reward.

One of the reasons I detest the whole "You don't see women in waste management" arguments, apart from the fact the person who brings it up is being entirely disingenuous, is because I wonder - "Well who the hell would want to aspire to wade through other peoples shìt for a living? That's neither a career for young women or young men, for a number of reasons!".

If people settle for crappy jobs that offer little in the way of career prospects, advancement or achievement, that is their choice, but we shouldn't be using that as a barometer for the kinds of careers that young people should be encouraged to aspire to just "to even up the score" so to speak.

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Having quotas in such an important profession is scary tbh as invariably quotas breed mediocrity.

We have a quota system - you have to be a sociopath to be a consultant.

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

We have a quota system - you have to be a sociopath to be a consultant.

Entirely unhelpful.

What if I put you in a situation where you had to spend 15 years of your life becoming a specialist at helping people. Except you can't, your beds are gone. Your team has been cut. Its your fault though - you're the consultant aren't you?

Have you ever been exposed to the pain and suffering in hospitals on a daily basis? Literally every day, being faced with people asking you for help over and over. You'll help 99 people but the 100th you couldn't will haunt you.

We're not nurses. We can't hide behind anyone else. We tell you the bad news. Do you know what happens when a nurse makes a mistake? The doctor has to tell the patient. How is that fair?

Have you ever had to tell 20 people in a row that they have cancer? Thats one clinic. Multiply that by 4 and thats a month for a cancer surgeon. Except, you can cut it out. Eventually you begin to withdraw from the pain of other people because you can either cut it out or you can't, its that simple. You have a life, other worries, other patients. Life goes on.

Now it's 10 years down the line and you appear cold, unsympathetic. Here's the catch, though, you're the best surgeon in the country at this type of cancer. You'll save this persons life but they'll call you a sociopath behind your back.

Nobody human can cope with a career of that sort of pressure and not begin to change. Slowly at first, until you can't change back.

So the next time you call someone a sociopath for being brilliant at their job and shielding themselves from the pain and suffering of other people, ask yourself if you could do that job. Not for a day, or for a week. For years.

You can't solve issues like this within medicine.

It happens in a large part due to factors wholly unrelated to medical training and medical practices.

Some of it is biology too but there's a big chunk of it that's society and societal expectations reinforcing biology, not just for women but for men.

Look at the argument about men not going into female dominated professions.
Money isn't worth it, why? Because the money in many cases has been sacrificed to terms and conditions that make the job family friendly - be that shorter days, long holidays, opportunities to job share . . . Male dominated professions are geared differently.

Women may get pregnant, give birth and breastfeed but short of giving up their job men are never given the chance to solo parent for a day while women spend 6-9 months at home with baby.

Men stay in medicine with long hours and manage to have a family because they marry someone who's willing to sacrifice their own career with shorter hours to do so. Women don't have that option and are never encouraged to think that way when looking for a life partner.

Introduce "new baby" leave that can be shared between both parents. Promote family friendly policies in male dominated professions. Encourage young men who want a family to think about female dominated professions.

That's a big chunk of getting women to stay in competitive careers.

evolving_doors wrote: »

I think the stats on female primary teachers is a bit above 60%

Almost nine out of every 10 (87%) teachers at primary level, and more than seven in 10 (71%) at post-primary level, are female according to EU figures. In real terms, this means that only around 4,400 of the 32,200 teachers at primary level across the country are men.

http://www.thejournal.ie/gender-imbalance-irish-teachers-3018754-Oct2016/

Wibbs wrote: »

It's not just "crap jobs", there's little to no mention of the hazardous jobs that need doing and are often well paid and are almost exclusively done by men. What's the gender split regarding workplace injuries and deaths?

Well I can understand why there's not in fairness, because those kinds of jobs involve physical manual labour and are often hazardous to those men's health, they're well paid because of the high risk of injury and even long term injuries. I just don't see why women should want to put themselves equally at risk because men choose to put themselves at risk. Of course the gender split regarding workplace injuries and deaths in those particular jobs is going to be skewed towards men, because men make up the majority of the workforce in those areas. With increasing safety standards and machinery doing most of the physical and manual labour now, there are more and more women entering careers like construction, oil rigging, engineering, etc - because the risks to health for both men and women have been reduced through the use of technology - there's more brainpower required and less manpower.

Even in the medical fields now, automation and technology has meant that there are even more opportunities again open to people regardless of their gender, stuff like virtual operating theatres for example -

The Virtual Operating Theater

Wibbs wrote: »

Yes and no. People are heavily influenced by society and societal expectations. Indeed that is a major tenet within feminism(and progressive philosophies in general), that it's all about culture and cultural influence and gender has little or nothing to do with it. Societal expectations on men as JS pointed out are strong: We still live in a society where men are expected to work and provide for a family in a way that women are not. This is even reflected in how people pair up in relationships. The trend remains heavily skewed towards women pairing up with men who are at best equal to them, but aiming for above them in career/education/pay. Man as provider is still very much in play. Men are also supposed to be more independent and requiring less social support than women. Men are much more likely to be homeless for example. In partner abuse they have pretty much no avenues of support and certainly not at the level that women can access. Hell when the appalling difference in rates of suicide are brought up, even there the feminist philosophy is brought in as a solution. You couldn't make this guff up.

Ok yeah I understand what JS meant now when he says 'in a way that women are not', and yeah, I'd agree with that with regard to social expectations for men - we are expected to provide, but I would equally suggest that the same expectations are now being put upon women, and there's this godawful attempt to put men into the role of the home-maker. Ideas like that belong in la-la land IMO. Men no more want to be home-makers than women want to work in dangerous jobs. That's why the whole idea of "If you believe in gender equality you should want this", just to me seems like a bit of an exercise in pointing fingers that nobody is actually going to take seriously.

Issues like domestic violence. suicide and homelessness among men are IMO issues that men should be tackling, but we don't really, because we're generally not as interested in caring about the welfare of other men as women are in caring about bloody well everyone. It's not really a criticism of either men nor women, it's just more of an objective observation. Women are expected by society to be nurturing and caring and all the rest of it, whereas men are expected to be self-sufficient providers. Nowadays we all just live in fancier caves, unless we're homeless that is, and then we get put up in hotels! Yeah, the whole face of homelessness in Ireland is changing. Whereas before there was no need for homeless shelters for men because men generally maintained rights to property and so on, women had two choices - stay in the abusive relationship, or move out and go into womens shelters. I've never agreed with shelters if I'm honest because they aren't ideal places for anyone. Therefore I wouldn't see any point in setting up shelters for men when they aren't going to be used, as I'd agree with you that men because they are more self-sufficient and want to be independent, probably won't use them.

It's only a handful of feminists in reality suggest feminism as the solution to everything, but I'm not going to take them seriously any time soon and I don't recommend that anyone should. It's clear that their agenda isn't at all the welfare either of men or women, but the promotion of themselves and their own fickle flavour of an ideology. Blind boy whatshisname is a classic example - made himself a nice living taking the piss out of a stereotype of men from Limerick city, then says the solution to the issue of men taking their own lives is feminism? Get t'fcuk like, honestly, I don't believe for a minute he has any interest in addressing a stigma he himself helped to perpetuate in the first place, champagne socialist prick.

Wibbs wrote: »

I hear this a lot and there is certainly some truth to it. However I still don't buy the extreme isn't the mainstream argument. Increasingly over the last few decades the extreme has become the mainstream in current feminism. The continuing focus on highly debatable points like the pay gap, the education gap(some are still crowing on about that, when it's painfully obvious which gender is suffering there), the health gap(again a nonsense), partner abuse and the near constant victimhood narrative.

...

Though that's more about self identifying feminists not being up to speed with what current feminism actually represents.

I would suggest that one of it's greatest weaknesses is that feminism just doesn't have a mainstream argument any more - liberalism has seen to that, where everyone can just cherry pick the bits they choose to follow and advocate for, and disassociate themselves from the bits they don't want to be associated with. There's an awful lot of importing American ivory towers culture which just doesn't map to womens experiences here in Ireland (hell I'm not even sure it maps to womens experiences in the States), but I think that has more to do with middle class women having access to the internet to spread that sort of stuff. If ever there were an example of the idea that feminism has no mainstream argument, a quick browse of everydayfeminism.com is an indication of women with a victim mentality looking for an oppressor. I sincerely hope that we don't start encouraging men to play the same politics of victimology in order to draw attention to themselves.

Wibbs wrote: »

Bit of a hyperbolic leap to hookers no? As I said there are plenty of jobs that need doing where women are underrepresented, but feminism is far more focussed on "equality" in the professions and corporate world. However that's not a shock for me because for all it's "right on" origins and claims it's very much a middle class philosophy and the focus is a reflection of that.

Shmall bit alright :pac: Honestly though it was the first thing that came to mind when I was thinking of "careers"* which are dominated by women which are high risk to their health and their lives, which it could be said that men wouldn't want to do. In all fairness it's not a shock to me either simply because I went from blue collar to white collar work and I can understand why anyone wouldn't want to do blue collar work in a society which is becoming increasingly about brainpower rather than manpower. We can't say we didn't see it coming as it started with the agricultural and industrial revolution, and now we're on the cusp of the technological revolution. Of course people are going to want to get in on it rather than get left behind.

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Wibbs has covered most of these points far better than I could.

He tends to do that, and he does it well!

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

The point is that if they genuinely wanted systemic equality, they would advocate for the bad parts as well as for the good parts. I have no problem with feminists advocating only for the good stuff if they accept that they are really just a lobby group for more stuff for women. But if they insist on saying they want equality, then they are going to have to get their hands dirty.

From my understanding of what feminism should be, I don't see anything wrong with women advocating for women's welfare and focussing on areas where women aren't regarded as equals to men. I genuinely think it's only a handful of feminists take it upon themselves to tell men what's in men's best interests, and I don't generally pay any heed to those types, any more than I'd expect if I were a woman I wouldn't pay attention to men telling me what they think I should be doing either. The women I know who generally identify as feminists actually have no problems with getting their hands dirty, they're right in the thick of it, and up until her dismal presidential election campaign I would have admired Hillary Clinton for example, until she rolled out the three stooges - America Ferrera, Sarah Silverman and Lena Dunham. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory! :pac:

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

You say we shouldn't encourage anyone to aspire to a low paying job. I agree with that. But if we are heading towards equality then we should be teaching women the same thing that we teach men about work i.e. in a group of 1000, one will be a Nobel price wining astrophysicist, 100 will be doctors, teachers, accountants etc and the other 899 will do all the necessary, but less salubrious, jobs that keep society going.

Do we teach men that though? I mean, I've heard that sentiment said alright over the years, but it's nothing I was ever taught, and clearly obviously didn't learn. I mean, the same could equally be said that was taught to women for a long time - "Keep young and beautiful, it's your duty to be beautiful". Again, not something I've ever heard anyone explicitly say, but the sentiment and it's effect is more or less the same - competition! I think we're already seeing the rise in competition among men to be impeccable physical specimens if they want to attract women

It's just not a philosophy I've ever bought into, because I don't believe anyone should ever set limits on themselves, there are more than enough people in the world more than willing and ready to do that for them. I'm all for encouraging people to make opportunities for themselves, and that's how they gain equal status with everyone else in society, rather than expect that society should owe them anything. I detest arguments based upon egotistical traits like "as a woman", "as a man", as though that should lend their case for equality any leverage. We live in a meritocratic society where people are generally judged and rewarded for what they contribute to society, not for what they feel they are owed by society.

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

*Yes, I'm aware that one of the current feminist issues is that women keep saying "Can I just say" instead of being more assertive. Yes I'm a man, and no I'm not being ironic in saying this. It's just how I talk.

Never would have occurred to me if I'm honest :pac:

I wasn't even aware this was a thing among women as generally women I encounter are able to be assertive, and don't feel the need to call people's attention before they speak. They generally don't tend to be wittering on about rape culture while flashing their repeal apparel either though, they're generally more interested in getting their hands dirty to get whatever they need to do done. That goes for the numbers of women I've encountered in education, in STEM, in business, in social care and indeed just in my life in general.