French Women Surgeons and feminist attitudes

Résumé 0

As American femal surgeons studied by Joan Cassell (1998), the French one's are a minority : about 10 % of the surgical population. In both national contexts, female students in surgery are always suspected of being less involved in their jobs as they are potential mothers, they are discredited in advance in matters of physical capacities, and are considered as to weak emotionally to "cope" in this difficult profession, but their reacted to this male ostracism in very different ways. A few years ago, a French femal surgeon tried to federate her female colleagues in a professional organization of women following the example of the Association of Women Surgeons (AWS) in the USA, but this project failed. We can analyse the success of the AWS and the failure of the French association as the affirmation of two kinds of feminism. Therefore, we can speak of a position of universalist feminism to characterize French women surgeons, while American women surgeons impose themselves with an essentialist feminist position (Gubin et. al., 2004).