Halo-Effect of Male Doctors as Saints
There are huge cultural differences between Germany and the USA concerning the cross gender choice of doctors.
I wrote
entry 241 after googling 'male doctor female patient' and finding a lot of discussion in favor of accepting the female right to choose female doctors and nurses. I found like minded people, who agree that forcing a male doctor on a woman is a form of sexual assault and that the woman has a right to be protected from forced intrusion into her intimate space.
There is no such sensitivity in Germany, absolutely none. Whenever I have dared to mention to any person, male or female, that I consider a male doctor forced upon me in a hospital as an outrage, I am considered and treated as if I were in some way mentally ill.
For Germans of both genders, a woman feeling uncomfortable with a male doctor is like someone feeling uncomfortable getting cold and wet in the rain. Rain and male doctors are considered unavoidable events of life. Even the German feminist movement, who ardently fights for the right of abortion, against pornography and many important issues, is oblivious to this issue. The most prominent feminists seem to consult male doctors without thinking twice about it.
I made the same google search as above in German: männlich Arzt weiblich Patientin.
I perused the first 100 findings. Some major topics:
1. Statistics about the number and specialties of female and male doctors.
2. Different communication styles of female and male doctors
3. Male doctors may lack understanding for the female way of experiencing sexuality
4 Female doctors may be the better qualified doctors for selected illnesses
5 Female gynecologists can be more knowledgeable by knowing, what they are examining and more rough for the same reason
6 General behavioral differences between male and female doctors
7 Male doctors' ignorance of the needs of female patients
But there was absolutely nothing about the suffering of women forced under male intrusion into their intimate space.
Cases of doctors drugging and abusing women are reported once in a while in the media. Only a few days ago, there was a case in the newspaper of a male nurse aged 27 having abused 7 women between 72 and 98 over a time of several years, some of them demented or in a coma.
http://www.mt-online.de/lokales/regionales/4222217_Pfleger_missbraucht_aeltere_Patientinnen.html
In this article, it is reported that some people expressed strong outrage and shock. But it all focuses only on the misconduct of this one individual nurse.
"Weder seine Zeugnisse oder die Bewerbungsgespräche noch seine Arbeit hätten Zweifel an seinem verantwortungsvollen Umgang mit den Bewohnern erkennen lassen"
Translated: Neither his references, nor the job interviews nor the performance of his work have led to any doubts concerning his responsible interactions with the inpatients.
That one bad guy is considered as personally guilty. There is not even a hint of the question, if forcing helpless old women, who cannot even protest, into the power of a male nurse is a wrong decision and should be reconsidered.
Whenever children are concerned, either when directly abused by adults or when indirectly abused by paying for child pornography, there is an outcry about what to do. Child pornography is illegal, and when a child is abused, all those, who have not prevented it, bosses of institutions, child protection authorities and others are also hold responsible.
But as soon as a victim is an adult woman, nobody bothers really, who enables the abuse, who could have prevented it. There is no responsibility ascribed to anybody except by the direct felon.
When the bishop moves a pedophile priest to another job, where he can continue the abuse, everybody holds the bishop responsible. When the manager of a nursing home orders female patients to be nursed by male nurses, nobody here in Germany holds him responsible.
I have only one explanation. Even 66 years after the overthrow of the nazi dictatorship, some of their mentality is still ruling the German culture in a subtle but very detrimental way.
It is the submission to both the authorities and to the authority of dominant and high status men. It is not so much an external but even worse, an intellectual and emotional submission. People are brainwashed, that authorities are right as are all men with the authority given to them along with high status and a high position on a hierarchy.
In nazi times, women were supposed to produce as many children as possible and raise them. Doctors were men, they were supposed to help deliver the children.
Doctors in Germany are considered as gods in white and by halo effect also as saints. One reason is the German university system. University is tuition free for all, who have passed the high-school end examination called Abitur. So there are by far more people wishing to study medicine, than there are places available. Accepted are only those with the best marks. That means, those, who are both, the most intelligent and the most conforming to the requirement of school. They were the most submissive to their teachers, later on they want to experience the submission of others. They choose to become doctors for the high status and the high income. But there is neither a selection nor a self-selection for emotional intelligence, ethical fitness or altruism.
Confronted with doctors with high status, considered as a sort of saints, women brainwashed to accept subtle male domination as something to be taken for granted are too much in awe to even doubt their obligation to be sheep to the doctor's treatment, whatever it is.
There is also the islam problem. When in the 60s Germany brought in lots of foreign workers, who then stayed and immigrated, all nationalities integrated, except the Turks, whose islamic culture kept apart. I dislike any religion, that allows polygamy and male domination over women, so I also dislike the islam.
Yet islamic women in Germany are the only women, who refuse and resent to be treated and nursed by men. Unfortunately, the same people, who treat me as deranged and prude, also deny, that the islamic women want to protect their dignity the same way as I do. These desensitized Germans have the prejudice, that it is a part of the islamic women's repression and that they want female doctors only in obedience to religion and husbands and not by their own personal sensitivity to their dignity.
This is very flawed logic. An islamic woman wants a female doctor. The islam is bad for women, ergo wanting a female doctor cannot be good for women, even for German women.
My only good luck is, that I only live 25km from the dutch border. If ever I need to, I know, where to go to the hospital.
"Female patients have the right to refuse treatment by a male doctor. Only in emergency situations can a woman be forced to accept a male doctor."
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2007/12/women_can_refuse_to_see_a_male.php
