PREFERENCE FOR MEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 February 1936, Page 10

PREFERENCE FOR MEN

WOMEN’S TASTE IN DOCTORS. Eighty thousand women Civil Servants in England have, by an overwhelming majority, shown their preference for. men doctors. The reason for this wholesale test of opinion rose out of the desire to give women another instalment of equality. They have been offered by Parliament the same pension system as the men. Hitherto, their pensions were, calculated under different regulations based bn an older Act of 1859. But before achieving this new measure of equality with the men, the Treasury has power to demand a medical examination, and thousands of women will have to undergo this examination before their applications are accepted. Under the first Treasury instructions issued all the doctors for carrying out this medical examination of the women were men. As a result of representations and protests, by the women’s associations, these instructions were modified, and an option was hurriedly given for medical examination by women doctors, several of whom were specially appointed for the purpose.

tn tho exercise of this option the women have shown a marked preference' for examination by men doctors. It is admitted by the official organ of tho National Association of Women Civil Servants that the number of women who have so far taken advantage of the Treasury concession is “relatively small.” It is so small, in fact, that the Treasury now considers that there is no real desire for the optiog, and on this ground further amendment of the regulations is refused. The National Association of Women ’Civil Servants says that the amended regulations in the form in which they bavo been issued convey the impression that a woman who prefers examation by a member of her own sex is to be regarded as the “victim of exceptional eccentricity.” Tho option was given in a footnote for the guidance of those who “specially desire” to be examined by a woman. The initial “blunder” of examination exclusively by men doctors, it is said, has been repaired “very imperfectly and ungraciously,” and there is an implied slight to women members of tho medical profession, which, it hopes, they will not allow to pass unchallenged. Among the questions to be answered in the medical certificate of every woman application for pension equality is: Do you believe her to be and to have been sober and temperate?