To think This Is Going To Hurt is awful to women?

[justanoldhack]

Watching the show and can't help but shake a really uncomfortable feeling that its writer just...really doesn't like women.

I get that doctors are super overstretched, so tired, giving the job everything at the expense of their personal lives. I also get that it's a 'comedy' and not real, although it is based on his true life experiences.

But the way the women are portrayed as silly, a nuisance, stupid, battleaxes, or simply a vessel that 'covers his pubes in blood'... feels so off. These are women at one of the most vulnerable moments in their lives, but they're just props, the butt of the jokes. I can't shake the feeling that Adam Kay really, really doesn't like women. Definitely does not respect them.

Thanks goodness, I guess, that he's not longer practicing medicine. And not surprised either to learn that when he was younger he wrote 'comedy' songs about babies with Down's Syndrome and women from the North.

Pretty sure there is some "dramatic licence" involved in this, which I'm.pretty sure is meant to be taken as dark comedy
You do realise you don't have to watch it?

@DramaAlpaca

I completely agree, OP.

Have you seen the other two longish threads on this? They make interesting reading too.

Yeah, why so many threads?

And I have to say, I have never heard of this show. Don't know what it's about - or what channel it's on!

That was certainly the impression I got from the book. He appeared to have time-travelled from the 1950s. I won't be watching the programme.

WTF is that poem?! Terrible.
Why? There are men (and women) just like that.
People are complex. People can be cunts.
Or are we cancelling the current poet Laureate now?

Horrible misogynistic crap dressed up as comedy.

All the you don’t have watch, this woman hating stuff shouldn’t be made.

@gingerhills

I've just watched it and it wasn't nearly as misogynistic as I expected it would be. The character of Tracy who sees right through him and isn't shy of saying so, the character of Shruti who stands up to him and is the true hero, the really good doctor among them all, give balance to the piece, as does the rather odd character of the inarticulate, self- absorbed wise-cracking female consultant who nevertheless gives Shruti her first proper chances at becoming an obstetrician.

The absolute arse of a consultant who is worse than Adam, abuses the NHS and lies without any guilt, shows he is capable of judging men just as harshly. Welly, the new best man to Greg is just as gross a caricature of men as any of the female characters are of women.

And he judges no one more harshly than himself. His treatment of Mist's mother, of Shruti, of Harry at the engagement party etc is so awful. He's been honest about what a shitstorm of a human he was.

I couldn't help wondering if his mother really was that appallingly cold and cruel and snobbish towards him. If so, you can imagine how early in life he had to put up a shell of mistrust and cruelty as a preventative against attack.

I agree with this. I haven't read the book and from reading some threads on here I was fired up and ready to find the series to be "awful to women", but as you say, I found there was a range of strong (and complex) female characters, that Adam's behaviour was not presented as admirable (quite the opposite), and that he suffers consequences from it. As I haven't read the book and know nothing of him in real life I can't comment on what he is like as an actual person - if PP are to be believed he sounds appalling - but the show's "Adam" was not presented at all uncritically I don't think (and really was having a very shit time).

On another note I see the show is going to be shown in the US - I'm sure it will confirm everything they think about the NHS.

*I saw the words 'maternity' and 'lighthearted' or 'comedy' and clicked away."

It really isn't lighthearted. Even a little bit.

Babdoc's right. Another one of the humorous songs referred to NI women as lazy whores - complete charmers, Kay and all of his contemporaries who thought that stuff was even vaguely appropriate for Rag Week.

Sorry to derail but I don't think it's an awful poem at all.

I think it's a great example of "he's such a great dad but..." threads we see on here all the time. That bad people do good things, especially when others are looking and this can make it hard for those who know them well to reconcile the image of the person with the rare, but nevertheless horrendous things they do. In the poem, many of the good things the man does are public, but the bad things are always behind closed doors.

I think all those condemning the show, should watch all seven episodes before condemning it.
You can judge the source material - but the adaptation is a lot more critical of the protagonist, including criticisms from here - put in Tracey's mouth.
Dismissing anything, Kay to Carr - without actually having seen it in context - is not informed.

What channel is it on?

Why would anyone put themselves through seven episodes of something they clearly didn't enjoy? I came to it completely new, never heard of it before just saw positive reviews on The Jeremy Vine show. I couldn't get through the first episode, and I'll usually watch any old shite. I found the tone really unpleasant, nothing funny about it at all.

I think doctors and nurses in the NHS often can't afford to think about their patients as people. If they allowed themselves to get emotionally attached to every patient and start seeing them as sentient beings with families and feelings the incredible responsibility of their jobs would overwhelm them and they would burn out. It's not ideal but it's the only way they can keep working at the high professional levels we expect of them.

I say this as a woman who isn't an NHS professional and who has had the experience of being a brood mare in an NHS labour ward. I would have loved a little more emotional connection from my carers but I am also grateful that after a long and arduous labour my DH and I left the hospital alive and well.
I also remember with huge affection two midwives who did bond with me emotionally - I'm grateful they were able to do that. It was 30 years ago and it still means a lot but I quite understand why HCPs can't connect like that with every patient.

@BadHairDayExpert

I think all those condemning the show, should watch all seven episodes before condemning it. You can judge the source material - but the adaptation is a lot more critical of the protagonist, including criticisms from here - put in Tracey's mouth. Dismissing anything, Kay to Carr - without actually having seen it in context - is not informed.

That's a fairly enormous investment of scarce time, particularly to emerge of the same or even worse opinion for something that was supposed to be entertainment.

I don't need more misogyny in my life, whoever it comes from.

I completely agree. I hugely disliked the book: his language, portrayal of women, the whole tone of it.
I haven’t and won’t watch the series.
I work in the NHS and understand the stresses.

I am enjoying it tbh. Obviously there is dramatic licence...................... but staff have been on the other threads saying that it was like this....................

I loathed the book. Absolutely hated it, and him. As an ex-NHS midwife, I would have agreed with every word written on this thread about his misogyny.

However...I started watching the series out of morbid curiosity and I think it's excellent and far, far more complex/nuanced than the book. It is extremely dark, and extremely uncomfortable, but I think it does show very well how the system chews up and spits out staff and users alike.

I think Kay is probably a deeply unlikeable and misanthropic human being but the series itself feels very real.

I only watched Ep1, but was disgusted by the misogyny in it. He treated the baby as the patient, not the woman giving birth. It reminded me of all the worst parts of being in hospital, in labour.

Adam Kay is vile and the book and show reflect his misogynistic views and unpleasantness. Why he is given any sort of platform is completely beyond me.

I thought that he exemplified all that is wrong with the way that the NHS treats women - ignore us, objectify us and tell us to run along there. Although having met a number of more recent Dulwich College alumni I wasn't surprised by his misogyny.

I got about two thirds of the way through his book and - even though I try to stick with things that make me uncomfortable - was so turned off by the undercurrent of misogyny that I sacked it off.

It's one of only two books - the other being American Psycho - that I've put down through disgust.

I'm very glad that he is no longer a practicing medical professional. A deeply unpleasant and somewhat sinister individual.

I isn’t get that impression while reading the book but I will watch it!

Tbh from personal experience I can believe there is some truth to it

Gosh it didn’t bother me, I thought it showed the pressure doctors are under and the humour about his patients would just as easily have been about men if he’d been in a different department. I’ve read the book too and would say it’s clear he cares for his patients and comes across some unusual situations and tries to be funny about it (I did find it funny but must be quite alone in this!)
Maybe I’m not very discerning but i took it all quite lightly .

It seemed outwardly misogynistic to me. The very first case is a woman who is in the middle of a breech birth - baby's hand has already been born. Adam meets her just outside the hospital then tries to usher into the hospital, get in a moving lift, jump out of it and then into the operating theatre for an emergency c-section. All this is portrayed as hilarious. At one point she says "Are you a doctor?" and he says "I notice you didn't ask me that before you showed me your vagina."

This is all supposed to be hilarious, right? All I could think about was how terrifying it would be for a woman in that situation. And sure, it shows the NHS is underfunded and doctors are overworked, but that doesn't mean you can't show compassion or warmth or a bit of human decency to patients. The same when he later tells a woman who has a severe tear as a result of forceps: "You'll have to go to theatre to be stitched up. It will take about an hour." It's so cold and callous. No acknowledgement of how that kind of injury might affect a woman. No acknowledgement that it's his own failure to supervise the house officer performing her first forceps that caused the injury. (Again, nothing to do with overwork - just not doing his job properly.) It's vile.

I thought it was very good but I agree that you need to watch all episodes and it’s not a comedy.

Whatever you think about Adam Kay the portrayal is of a troubled clever complicated and arrogant man working in appalling circumstances. The nastiness, the dishonesty and the selfishness of the character is laid bare and then there are moments where he’s absolutely heroic, so huge shades of grey (like most people actually). I think Ben Wishaw does it brilliantly. I found it really really moving.

I hated the tone and comments about geriatric patients in the book. But what I took from the memoir as a whole and from the adaptation is just how chronically underfunded and understaffed the NHS was/is. Adam Kay spent 6 years training and 6 years working under those conditions.
The whole system needs an overhaul and women's services in particular.
Women have been ill treated and misdiagnosed for time immemorial, from being deemed ''hysterical'' (in need of an orgasm) to ''tired all the time'' (nothing wrong, oh no) to being labelled ''too posh to push'').
At consultant level only 36.6% of doctors are women - that's what needs to change.