saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (02/03/84)
I agree with all the comments that have been made concerning the sexism of the statement that we should patronise women doctors. I also believe that we should choose doctors for their qualities, not their sex, but I have had enough bad experiences with male doctors to convince me from now on to be sexist and try to choose female doctors whenever I can. My pediatrician when I was growing up had a standard test he gave to pubescent girls: when their breasts started growing, he would one day, without a warning, squish one of them to see if it was "normally" sensitive. This hurt like hell! My mother got very angry when he did that, but as she was not too aware of whether this was needed or not, and since this pediatrician was supposed to be very good, I continued going there. Then, when I turned 14, he took me apart to ask me if I wanted any birth control. This was a nice thought, but he asked me in such a stupid convoluted way, first asking me questions about whether I liked boys and what I did with them, that I thought he was being voyeuristic, got very insulsted & politely told him to f--k off. My male gynecologists have been either very patronising, not wanting to give me information, and treating me like a little child (one of them told me that he wouldn't give me the pill to regulate my periods when I was 16, because he didn't want to encourage me to be sexually active, at which point I told him that I had never asked him for the pill in the first place and that even if I did, I was capable of deciding for myself whether I wanted to be sexually active or not. The nerve of him! Thinking about that jerk still makes me mad), or seemed to have a very profound disgust for female anatomy. In my life, I have only had one male doctor who was competent when it came to sexual issues, even though most of them were quite competent on other issues. So, I have gotten very tired of giving male doctors a chance and I go to female doctors whenever I have a choice. I have had one whose attitude I didn't really care for, but overall, I am much more satisfied with them then with the men. It felt very good to hear my female gynecologist tell me "some of us need abortions some of us don't, I hope you won't, but if you do, I'll help you" when I asked her what her opinion on the matter was.
edhall@randvax.UUCP (02/07/84)
------------------------------- Male doctors don't have a corner on lack of sexual sensitivity. When I developed urethritis a few years back, I went to my health clinic and was assigned a doctor who (incidentally to all but this discussion) was female. Since gonorrhea is always a possibility in such cases, she questioned me a bit about my sex life (which was quite monogamous at the time). She was certainly knowledgable, but when she wanted to find out whether to do a throat culture for gonorrhea she asked in stern tones, `you don't ever have oral sex, do you?' I said I did, and she shook her head and looked disgusted (and I don't think it was because she had to do an extra culture). I cannot fault this doctor for her competence, as my understanding is that gonorrhea should be suspected in any case of male urethritis. And she did give me proper treatment, both for the possible (so far as she knew) gonorrhea and for the non-specific urethritis it turned out to be; she also insisted that I have my girlfriend get treatment. But I'll never forget just how loathsome she seemed to feel about oral sex, and how she treated me as if I had done something so *dirty*. -Ed Hall decvax!randvax!edhall