Choosing a Specialty: Intersections of Gender and Race among Asian and White Women Medical Students in Ontario

Abstract

Forty years ago, Bourne and Wikler (1978) wrote about the challenges women faced in medical school, arguing that women's specialty choices were structurally conditioned by the subtle discrimination they faced, as well as the masculine nature of medical practice. Since then the demographic make-up of the medical profession has changed: today, many entrants are not only women, but also members of racial/ethnic minorities. Have these changes affected women's medical specialty decisions? Adopting an intersectional theoretical lens, this paper explores the experiences and career specialty choices of White and Asian women medical students. We find that discrimination and concerns over work-family conflict continue to shape the specialty choices of women in medicine, but that White and Asian women's experiences differ in meaningful ways. Asian women experience racialized gender discrimination and distinct family pressures, compared to their White counterparts, complicating their specialty choices, and reproducing inequality within the profession.