Apparently women can't be doctors...

Just to redress the balance...
DS1 (3.5) Is Dr Foster went to Gloucester a man?
Me: Yes.
DS1: How is he a doctor?
Me: Erm, he went to medical school I suppose
DS1: But how is he a doctor? He's a man! Doctors can't be men!
This carried on for a while but I couldn't convince him.

Interestingly , although I am a doctor I haven't worked since he was born, and of the 3 times DS1 has been to the doctor, 2 have been men, so I have no idea where he's got this from!

It is difficult to tell who's who when they are all wearing green tops and bottoms.

This is somewhere where I see my own prejudices; I do expect a doctor to be a rather grave looking man in his fifties (at the least). The vital bit of this is not so much the gender as the age. I'm fully cognisant of the fact that there are more female doctors qualifying than male ones, but I have this image in my head from, I guess, my childhood, of what a doctor should look like. My main problem with encountering doctors (and lawyers, etc) these days is that they seem so flipping young!! Same with the Police... what a cliche! I guess this means I'm old :(

Men have far less autonomy or individuality in most professional settings. A suit, shirt and tie is just about it unless you run the place.

I can't agree with you, Morebeta. Your approach leaves women having to conform to very narrow, conservative ideas of what they should look like in any given work context. I don't accept that women should have less autonomy or indivduality in that than men. Also, as other posters have said, the problem is that gender attitudes are so ingrained, that even 'appropriate' dress or power-dressing won't save the OP and many other women from the kind of assumptions OP is complaining about.

That said, it is a shame that current fashions and anti-feminist attitudes have left some younger women believing that the be-all and end-all of good dressing is sexual display.

DH and DS recently visited me at work. We sat at a nearby cafe and watched a young woman staggering past in a very tight suit and incredibly high stilettos, both of which were clearly making wallking difficult. DS (2) watched her go by and said "That lady needs to go to the loo, Mummy". Up to her how she dresses, obviously, but I reflected sadly that no man would ever subject himself to such discomfort for anything.

Do stop whining lady doctors, soon enough you will be patronising patients 2 or 3 times your age and getting upset when the little people (i.e. non doctors) question you, just like the men. Your hair and make up problems are minor inconveniences on your upward career trajectories.

[morebeta] - sorry, but your dress advice is as much about re-inforcing gender and professional stereotypes as it is anything else! I'm sure it is entirely well-meant. There is a generational shift in how different professions and the men and women in them dress and present themselves. Eg. most male medical colleagues of my generation wear shirt / tie / chino or suit trainers, but not all will wear a tie. Us lady docs tend to go for smart casual outside of environments like OP, where there is a specific set of clinical and practical reasons for wearing scrubs, flat shoes, no make-up, hair pulled back etc.

The idea that a female surgeon (of whatever seniority) should have to send out power signals through her hair / make-up / jewellery is a bit barmy, tbh . For one thing, once you're in scrubs facing a day in theatre it is rather impractical (yum, sweaty makeup sliding down face, attempting to get stiff hairsprayed hairdo under disposable paper hat, infection control huntng you down for jewellery etc). For another - why on earth should you, unless this is your own personal taste or style? I don't see how this fits with a feminist viewpoint. Even a female doc who chooses to wear 'less appropriate' clothing (short skirts, tight or low tops) - this is still her choice as a woman to choose the image she presents to the world, that makes her happy - even if that means a pink stethoscope? What you wear does not somehow cancel out the years of training and the expertise built up in any career. Or mean that you are invalidated as a woman because you dress frivilously. I've met / worked with plenty of female colleagues who dress like Barbie but their competence is obvious, as well as some who are frighteningly air-headed! And the same goes for female colleagues who dress conservatively.

I personally tend to tailor what I wear at work to the work situation - routine patient contact, smart casual to a softer look (I'm a psychiatrist, so a suit or harsh tailoring can be too intimidating for patients); if I'm going to court or into prison, I'll wear a suit. So I follow some conventions about dress, but I wear clothes to suit my taste and which are professional enough, not to some theoretical doctor dress code.

My experience is also one of people judging what they think I am based on age and gender, not on how I and others introduce me. I do think this is much more pronounced than for my male peers, and it is a common experience for female peers. My favourite was in a prison where I used to do clinics. The male consultant had worked there for years and the GP was also male. I would come in, in my suit, prisoners would be told by the nurses (in nursing or prison uniforms) that they would be seeing DrTulip and yet the poor male prisoners never could seem to get it straight that I was the doctor. However, rather than 'nurse' they would call me 'miss', leaving me feeling rather like a primary school teacher (quite appropriately most of the time!)

Hear hear TheRealMBJ.

And I would like to add one more thing. The nice polite "politically correct" responses you get from people in the formal, controlled environment of outpatient clinics is one thing.

But then, as springbok says, once a patient is admitted to hospital with something a bit more acute than that (ie: when someone is put in a stressful situation) then that thin social veneer can come off and you begin to see the assumptions people unconsciously make all the time but usually keen hidden. Once under stress some people will start bypassing their internal censor -you know, that entity that sits in your prefrontal cortex and usually stops you saying unwise things.

The fact that these things (assumptions about people's roles/seniority purely on the basis of gender) are STILL happening in the 21st century, is a sign that our society is not as equal as we'd like, and that feminism is just as relevant today as in the Bad Old Days.

Haven't read the whole thread, but I know exactly what you mean OP. I'm not practising currently but have experienced very similar attitudes uncertain hospitals I have worked in. TBH, depending on my level of exhaustion, I could sometime respond very rudely to this stubborn denial of the fact that I could be a doctor. AND I'm a physician, I don't even work in the more misogynist surgical arena. In fact, I have found it to be much worse here than in my native South Africa, a country not really known for it's gender equality. I think it says a lot about Britain, tbh.

Anyway, I think it ridiculous to suggest that a doctor (or any other femal professional for that matter) should dress according to some sort of 80s Working Girl stereotype of a "powerful female executive". It simply is neither practical nor safe to dress in stillettos and a pencil skirt in what is quite a physically demanding job, nor is jewellery allowed for infection control purposes (other than a simple wedding band).

(Personally, I prefer black stethoscopes as they look the most timeless and classy to me, on men and women . BUT surgeons are very unlikely to carry one anyway, so I don't think these assumptions have anything to do with steth colour. It's just pure, ingrained, cultural sexism)

I don't agree that springbok should dress in heels and a pencil skirt suit. That is not comfortable when walking down long corridors perhaps at speed in an emergency and impractical in a hospital environment. She needs to wear clothes that are safe and comfortable. The most confidence inspiring female Consultant I know wears jeans and a shirt with rolled up sleeves and introduces herself by her first name and surname and I don't think that anyone would ever contemplate that she was anything other than her job title.

The problem is, imo, that men can afford to be more relaxed with the dresscode because they don't have to prove their competence. Women on the other hand have to play more by the rules because they do.

feministlurker - you know perfectly well I'm not suggesting the OP wears heels and a gold necklace with her scrubs. I have seen a female and a male consultant in the last few months. Both were wearing very obviously formal business dress when they met me. I noticed both people and their modes of dress. I have seen other consultants do the same. My female GP also wears quite formal busines dress much like the female consultant I saw.

I really feel from the description she has given that the OP is unconciously dressing down and she needs to think about what message that sends.

It matters in the professional world. Sorry but it does and it is no use pretending it doesn't.

It would be a crying shame if the OP is unknowingly damaging her career prospects by dressing in a way that sends signals that she is a junior member of staff when she is so obviously highly skilled and good at her job. We need more women like the OP in senior positions so people get used to seeing it.

Several times on the thread, I have seen people basically saying 'if she is good at her job that is what matters. Well yes - but to get to the very top of any profession we all know very well that office politics, associating yourself with other successful people, sending the right signals up the chain about your competencies, grabbing promotion opportunities as well as dressing, looking, speaking and behaving 'like a professional' all matter just as much. Women very typically make the mistake of believing that 'if I'm good at my job I will get recognised'. That is just not how it works.

LilBB - walk onto any trading floor in The City, a top end law firm, an accountacy/consultancy firm. You will see very few senior women but they all take extreme care in what they wear, their modes of speech, how they do their hair. It is obvious they are not secretaries.

If you want to see what I mean look at photos of one of the mpost powerful women in the World here, here, and here. Christine Lagarde just appointed as Head fo the IMF, former French Finance Minister and Head of Baker Mackenzie profesisonal services firm.

Morebeta where you taking notes on the consultants dress? Also can you explain what your DW meant when she told the careers officer that girls shouldn't dress like secretaries? What do secretaries look like? I think what you wear to work depends on your office. Yes you need to dress smart for interviews to be taken seriously but after that it's up to your brain. It's a shame people have preset ideas about men doing x job and women doing y but the way you dress doesn't make a jot of difference. As I've already said often staff with less responsibility dress better than those higher up.

oops, forgot that MN does not do HTML codes like for bold type

Sounds like you were taking very careful note of this consultant's attire MoreBeta.

But stilettos with scrubs and Pure Gold Jewellery ?? What??! sorry, that sounds like something out of a poor-quality B-movie. Nobody would ever wear that in RL! If you wore than when on nights, beyond not being able to walk as fast as you wanted to across the dodgy, poorly-lit car-park, you'd look like you'd got half dressed but forgotten to change out of your pyjamas!

Anyway why are you all trying to problem-solve for springbok? The problem is... that we live in a patriarchy. It is not her fault she gets mistaken for a nurse!!! "Power signals" in the medical world aren't things in your clothes or your hair. Or what sort of stethoscope you have: maybe a nurse is unlikely to have a Littmann Cardiology 2000 or whatever it's called now, but a medical student might well do.

Medical power signals are when you have a long retinue of junior doctors and medical students trailing after you like baby ducklings, frantically writing down everything you say. Or when you arrive and all the other staff shut up, acknowledge you and look at you expectantly. When the secretaries actually say yes when you ask them to do something. There is not much you can do about all these things when you are on a rotational training programme or on call on a strange ward and the other staff don't know you very well.

Basically - I think that doctory power signals = other people giving you respect, more than any particular style of dress. I can think of too many terminally scruffy consultants, and ultra-glam dieticians, for the "power dressing" rule to apply to the medical world.

springbok - I don't disagree with much at all on the thread as DW faced exactly the same problem. Your age and your sex are against you. It will get easier as you get older. Much of the professional world is male dominated, male views prevail and men set the rules including the unwritten ones about 'what a doctor/consultant wears'.

I met the female consultant in her office and was dressed as follows:

First meeting: Tailored summer business dress (Hobbs I think) bobbed obviously coifeured hair, simple but good quality pure gold necklace and earings, 2 inch spikey heels.

Second meeting: Grey well cut skirt suit with jacket on, hair, heels and jewelery same as before.

I did see her for 10 minutes in her scrubs and she introduced herself as 'Hello, I Miss xxxx the consultant and I will be carrying out your operation today'.

You can't do much about scrubs but your flat shoes, no makeup, no jacket, possibly no jewelery and maybe your hair tied back would make you look very dressed down and quite young. Higher heels is definitley not nurse attire and adding 'power' signals in your clothes and hair will all help.

Sorry but some people still can't quite get it through their heads that a woman can be a doctor/consultant. Its tiresome and horrible but the female consultant I spoke about quite clearly had carefully chosen her attire to signal 'I am a consultant'. She was dressed 'up' as a business woman.

Get what you're saying Springbok, but it still illustrates people's underlying prejudices that they will draw on in their wider life. It's like when people 'accidentally' use racist/sexist/homophobic language. It doesn't 'just slip out' if it's not there in the first place.

It's hard to change people's attitudes but you can change the way you feel about those attitudes and how you respond. One way of looking at things that might help you manage this, springboks, is to turn it around and think that it's not the case that your patients don't think you can be a doctor but that nurses are almost always women so, if 90% of nurses are female, when a patient is looking for a nurse, they're looking for a female person. If you happen to be female and around and they're under stress, they might shout for you.

It's the same issue many women face at work with secretaries / admin staff, who are invariably always female everywhere I've worked. If someone comes into the office looking for a secretary / admin, they're usually looking for a woman and if I or other female colleagues are around and inconveniently female, they'll address their questions to us, even though none of us work in admin roles. I've never seen it happen to male colleagues. It grates but my solution is to be as unhelpful as possible so they never bother me again. I'm never rude, just 'unforthcoming' with any help and information . I have perfected a feigned clueless demeanour that I model on the stereotypical man - not my own DH, I hasten to add - when confronted with a pile of laundry or dirty dishes.

That doesn't explain the other instances where you actually tell people you are a doctor and they refuse to address you that way. That's just bizarre, I'm afraid. Especially since usually when you meet doctors in hospital, they're announced (e.g. 'the doctor will be around to see you later' etc) or introduce themselves clearly as doctors.

Nonsense, perfectly good tourniquet in times of crisis.