Center for Medical Education, Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya University, 65 Tsurumai-cho Showa-ku Nagoya, Aichi, 466-8560, Japan.
Department of Education and Culture, Faculty of Letters, Kansai University, Osaka, Japan.
BMC Med Educ. 2023 Nov 12;23(1):857. doi: 10.1186/s12909-023-04855-4.
Gender studies in the medical profession have revealed gender biases associated with being a doctor, a profession often regarded as more suitable for men. The path to gender equality inevitably involves deconstructing this masculinized assumption. Despite the decades-long expectation that ikumen-men who actively participate in childcare in Japan-would contribute to a change toward gender equality, Japanese society is still male dominated, and women suffer from a large gender gap. With the aim of exploring implicit gendered assumptions concerning being a caregiver and a doctor, the authors focused on the experience of individuals juggling the binary roles of a professional and a caregiver.
The authors conducted subjectivist inductive research, recruited ten Japanese physician fathers through purposive sampling, and collected data through one-to-one semi-structured interviews between October 2017 and December 2018. The authors recorded and transcribed the narrative data, and extracted themes and representative narratives.
The study identified three themes about the reproduction and potential change of the gender gap: maintaining gendered assumptions of the medical profession without experiencing conflict, maintaining gendered assumptions of the medical profession while experiencing conflict, and deconstructing gendered assumptions of the medical profession through conflict. The authors found that these negotiations interplayed with the gendered division of labor between male doctors and their wives as well as the patriarchal family structure.
The study revealed how gendered assumptions of the medical profession, as well as gender stereotypes and gendered division of household labor, were reproduced in the course of male doctors' negotiations when they became fathers. For male doctors to question their unconscious gender bias, the authors emphasize the importance of men gaining knowledge about gender stereotypes, and propose that educators create such opportunities. Moreover, the authors assert that increasing doctors' awareness of how masculinized assumptions implicitly interact with ideas of being a doctor-an aspect rarely discussed among medical professionals-is crucial for deconstructing the gendered normativity in the medical field.
医学领域的性别研究揭示了与医生职业相关的性别偏见，而医生职业通常被认为更适合男性。实现性别平等的道路不可避免地涉及解构这种男性化的假设。尽管人们期望日本的“育儿 ikumen 男性”积极参与育儿会促进性别平等的转变，但日本社会仍然以男性为主导，女性仍然存在较大的性别差距。为了探讨关于照顾者和医生的隐含性别假设，作者关注了同时扮演专业人士和照顾者这两个角色的个体的经验。
作者进行了主观归纳研究，通过目的性抽样招募了 10 位日本男医生，并通过 2017 年 10 月至 2018 年 12 月期间的一对一半结构化访谈收集数据。作者记录并转录了叙述性数据，并提取了主题和代表性叙述。
研究确定了关于性别差距再生产和潜在变化的三个主题：在没有经历冲突的情况下维持医学职业的性别假设，在经历冲突的情况下维持医学职业的性别假设，以及通过冲突解构医学职业的性别假设。作者发现，这些谈判与男医生及其妻子之间的性别分工以及父权制家庭结构相互作用。
该研究揭示了在男医生成为父亲时，他们在谈判过程中是如何复制医学职业的性别假设、性别刻板印象和性别分工的，以及这些假设是如何再生产的。为了让男医生质疑他们无意识的性别偏见，作者强调了男性了解性别刻板印象的重要性，并提出教育者应该创造这样的机会。此外，作者断言，提高医生对隐含的男性化假设如何与医生职业的观念相互作用的认识，对于解构医学领域的性别规范至关重要，而这一问题在医学专业人员中很少被讨论。
