By Christina M. Ward, MD

I first realized there were different gender expectations at a math contest in 5^th grade. After completing a series of tests, I was one of the top six students in the state called up to the stage to receive an award. The emcee announced the finishers in reverse order, pausing before the final two. I turned to the other remaining student on the stage, a boy I did not know, and wished him good luck. He replied, “Oh, I’ll win because girls aren’t good at math.” 

I was mystified. I could not understand what about being a girl or a boy had anything to do with understanding math. After the ceremony, I peppered my parents with questions. Like every well meaning parent asked impossible questions, my parents could not explain to my satisfaction why girls should not be good at math. This experience did not send me on a righteous feminist quest to prove him wrong. Rather, I set it aside as a curious encounter, and continued nerding out at math. But I did notice that the farther I advanced, the fewer the number of female classmates I had, and the more I encountered other voices echoing the idea that girls did not belong in math and science.

As a kid, I found myself most engaged in math and science classes, where the problems were intrinsically interesting and challenging. Likewise, when I considered what path to pursue in medical school, orthopaedic surgery felt the most comfortable, requiring a unique mix of technical prowess, problem solving, and people skills that seemed likely to hold my attention for many years. Although I understood there were relatively few female orthopaedic surgeons, I did not choose orthopaedics to prove a point, or be any sort of trailblazer. During residency, I put my head down, worked hard, and tried not to ruffle any feathers. When I encountered bias (the backhanded compliment, “I didn’t think girls could be good surgeons until you came through.”), I did my best to ignore and move on. To succeed, I simply had to be the best at everything so that no one could argue that I was good, while also being nice to everyone, so that no one could call me the dreaded b-word. 

Truthfully, I was probably unhelpful to other females who felt belittled or singled out, because I believed that if you simply worked harder than anyone else, no one would care if you were male or female. But didn’t I see that the male residents could skip conference and no one noticed? That they could be rude and condescending to the nursing staff without consequence, where the female residents could never be snippy or short without being “written up”? Sure, I saw that, but if you were waiting for that to change, you might be waiting a very long time. Better to just suck it up, buckle down, and move on. 

To be fair, this attitude served me quite well, though likely not doing anything to improve the situation for those who followed me. That fact became clear during the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign (bear with me, this will not get political) when a story popped up about someone telling Clinton that “she should smile more,” and how a male candidate would not encounter the same response. Listening to the story on the radio, my husband turns to me and says, “Guys don’t tell you to smile, do they?  That would be a weird thing to say.”  

I thought he was joking.  “Yes, they do.” 

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Like it’s happened a few times?”

“A few times a month. And they also comment on my appearance in general. A lot. Like daily.”

At this point, we had been together twenty years, through residency, fellowship, two kids, and a million other things. He’s a smart guy (also a doctor) and an extremely supportive spouse. But there was no way for him to know this whole other aspect of my experience as a female professional unless I shared it with him.  

Which is why I’m sharing this with all of you. Not to gripe or point fingers, but in the hope that you might share your experience (whatever that may be) with those around you. I am by no means perfect at navigating differences in gender, race, and religion, and have certainly made mistakes (wishing my Jehovah’s Witness coworker a Happy Birthday. Oof). However, I try to approach these situations with humility and grace. Humility in that I admit that I may offend or be insensitive even when I mean no harm and that I must apologize and try to learn so I do not repeat the error. And grace, that I may remember that those around me also have good intentions and may not be aware how their words and actions negatively impact others. 

In an interesting turn of events, we moved to a different town when I was in junior high, and I ended up attending high school with the 5^th grade boy from the math contest. I once asked him if he remembered meeting me back then. He had no recollection of the math contest, other than winning, but helpfully pointed out that there were not any other females in my math class. I am going to assume that he had good intentions, but I’d like to think today I would point out that his repeating this old trope really wasn’t helping the situation.