Should gender matter in the medical profession? Join the Royal College of Physicians museum for a special evening focused on the struggle for female medical equality in the 20th century.
Features illuminating short talks, an ‘in conversation’ with Dr Lesley Hall and Dr Leslie Brock, and curator-led tour of the acclaimed exhibition ‘This vexed question: 500 years of women in medicine’.
At the beginning of the 20th century a member of staff at the London School of Medicine for Women said: ‘Medicine is a jealous mistress and those who would win her favours must not worship at any other shrine.’
While women had been included as doctors on Britain’s new medical register since the 1860s, the larger question of what it meant to be a woman and a doctor took on new urgency in the early 1900s.
Could a woman be a doctor and a suffragette?
Should women doctors model themselves on male clinicians or be something completely different?
Did gender matter at all?
This ‘in conversation’ evening with Dr Lesley Hall and Dr Claire Brock will reflect on activism, gender and the tumultuous turn of the 20th century for women physicians and surgeons. Through short lectures and lively discussion, the event will delve into challenging questions around women’s careers, family lives and roles in the political movements of this period.
Programme
6.00pm: Drinks reception
6.15pm: Exhibition tour of ‘This vexed question’ (pre-book only, places are limited)
7.00pm: Short talks:
Battles not yet won: women doctors between the Wars Dr Lesley Hall
Vexing Questions for Medical Women, 1860-1918 Dr Claire Brock
7.40pm: Lesley Hall and Claire Brock in conversation with Royal College of Physicians museum curator, Dr Kristin Hussey
8.15pm (approx.): Exhibition viewing and pay bar
9.00pm: Close
Book your ticket here.