Doc's mood from Paris: Is being a woman a tragedy?

The many discussions I’ve had with with my patients have given me opportunity to reflect on the position held by women in society espescially in recent weeks, with news of violence against women (sexual mass crimes in Germany and in Sweden, first defamed to be later relabelled as incidents, domestic violence...).

First, the beautiful Natalia, 42, smiling and contented. She came to greet me in July, before her departure abroad with her husband Edward and their 3 sons. He had accepted a very good position. Questioning her about her future activities (professional or else), Natalia squawked: "I never had the need to work, Edward has always made good living." I have nothing against stay-at-home women, or even against stay-at-home men. But at this very moment, her phrase stunned me.

Are we only made to fill the gaps of Men? Do we, always and again take the shape of the container in which we are placed?

Then, Ariane, 38, just as fresh and happy, who told me with pride: "I am unemployed, I take care of my children" and indeed here she is on her Facebook profile with multiple pictures surrounded by her children, skiing, at a wedding ... A real promotion campaign for family (but from which era?)

Is the education of children by housewives necessarily of better quality?

Both personally and professionally, I never felt worried as a woman. In Med school, I experienced a privileged environment with undeniable diversity and parity, at my Parisian Faculty, as well as at the hospital. Same professions, same wages (miserable) as much as for nursing auxiliaries than for Professors.

Without being either a vociferous or a pretty top-less graffitied feminist, (too quickly) covered in bruises, I never imagined that one day I would care for the way people gaze at women. I know that despite everything I am very lucky to be able to question myself about the role of women, as by definition this means that they do have one.

Even before looking at the progress society has made in regards to the submission of women in the East and the Far East, are we nowadays witnessing in our so-called industrialized countries a stagnation, a decline on the issue of Women's Rights (consideration, security, social life ...)?

Women suffer from many dominions, and sail in troubled waters, sometimes even in opposing currents in a world that sometimes gives pride to hollow and mediocre female models, either reality TV stars, or former prostitutes whose fame comes from
beautiful topless but they are in a short time futureless.
They suffer from genre domination because unfortunately male supremacy still seems well-rooted in everyone’s unconscious. Society, even in industrialized countries, repeats stereotypes, and keeps women at a different rank. The education given to a boy or a girl is similar but never identical.

It all starts in Elementary school where we are more forgiving to a boy: a dirty book and unkempt, or later the first time he comes home drunk... Another stereotype: the alleged passivity of women (except in their role as mothers) in multiple domains (including sexual).

In addition, they have to endure class warfare. And to wrap things up, they inflict rivalry between each other amid their absolute quest for perfection. Consequently feelings of guilt are not a surprise with all these pressures.

Working sometimes puts them in uncomfortable positions, because they have less time to spend with their children, but being a housewife can also result in discomfort, as they face the gaze of others, sometimes contemptuous, so they title themselves as "self-employed" on their Facebook profile to avoid having to leave their work status blank. I have nothing against such a decision from a family, especially if this choice is made in total harmony. However I would be quite embarrassed, not by my future in the case of a separation, but by a lack of autonomy similar to that of childhood or adolescence, hence a pseudo regression. I would feel no longer as a contributor to society’s equality and parity structural advancement.

Women are too torn; they become their own enemy. Some colleagues of our current French Minister of Health, when she was being heckled by both medical and paramedical professionals, then judged her as being attacked because she was a women, even though as Françoise Giroud once said:

Women will truly be the equals of Men the day when, holding an important position, we will we able to define them as incompetent.

They hinder their own parity in certain circumstances. Just as recently after Cologne, when female politicians or feminists expressed themselves uttering the greatest nonsense. Or the undermining of the right to abortion in France, the feminist advancement of all, by a young woman, during the campaign for French Regionals, whose political party is supposed to embody a Renewal.
Ascent women, this is a cry of alarm. Let’s educate our sons, talk to our girls.
Let´s think of it quickly and make sure that being born a woman can never be experienced as a tragedy.

F