Despite forming a majority of graduating doctors, women occupy a minority of permanent consultant and general practice posts in the Republic a leading doctor has said.
Dr Mary Gray, a GP in Limerick and a member of the Irish Medical Organisation's National GP Committee, addressed the topic "feminisation of medicine and other professions" at a meeting in Dublin. She said there was clear evidence that professional women will stay in the workplace if given the choice.
Delivering an Irish Times/ Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland lecture, Dr Gray said of 655 medical students attending Trinity College Dublin in 2003, 54 per cent (354) are women. In the law faculty, there is also a 2 to 1 ratio of women to men. The only faculty in Trinity College with a majority of male students is engineering and information technology. Emphasising that feminisation was not just a medical issue, she said an analysis of other universities showed similar results.
Dr Gray blamed inflexible working conditions and exploitation as two key reasons why female professionals are unable to exercise a real choice to stay in the workforce. "Women are twice as likely as men to be assistants in general practice. Part-time contracts do not exist, with the result that women GPs were denied access to maternity leave and pensions", Dr Gray said.
Calling on women professionals to be more proactive in changing their work culture, Dr Gray said that a recent EU directive on the equal treatment of women in the workplace specifically forbade either direct or indirect discrimination on the grounds of sex.