Sorry,
@JaimeS, you know I love you
, and the following comments will seem like I'm singling you out. Please know it's not personal at all.
I'm sure this won't be popular in general, but I hafta pipe up because I personally am getting a little...disturbed? annoyed? it's hard to find the right word...about the prevalent hypersensitivity we all seem to be okay with exhibiting when it comes any little perceived slight from men. Consequently, I'm feeling a real need these days for cultural balance. Feminism did a real good job of balancing what was a legitimate problem, but now we're swinging over into the realm of unnecessary hypersensitivity about a lot of things. Is feminism truly about effecting equality and allowing all humans to take deserved credit for their achievements, or, at its core is it really about accruing power--deserved or undeserved--to women?
Anyway, I don't see that it's worth taking issue with the guy wanting to protect his wife. I can see any man, or woman, including myself, coming from the perspective of wanting to protect a family member. I remember when my father had cancer I was quite frantic because I was long distance and didn't think my mother was doing a good enough job advocating for him (because she does not easily oppose authority figures, be they male or female), and I thought he might be too addled by the pain meds to do it for himself. I wasn't so much motivated by the fact that I could put myself in his shoes or empathize well with his situation...I simply couldn't. He had stage IV lung cancer that had migrated into his spine, and was in what I suspect was an unimaginable amount of pain. But even though I couldn't begin to feel his pain, he was my father and I wanted to PROTECT HIM because he was in a situation where he was unable to do it for himself.
I feel the same way about my aging mother now. My hackles are always raised if I think someone is trying to take advantage of her or doesn't treat her well. God help the doctor that tries to marginalize her if she ever gets really sick (knock wood, she's still in great shape at nearly 80) and I become the primary advocate in her care. I feel this way not so much because I think how horrible would it be if I was in her situation, but because she is my mother and I LOVE HER. It is my natural urge to protect her, and it is not in any way condescending or unsympathetic for me to feel that way.
So IMO it's pretty fair to assume this author is coming from the same perspective about his wife, even if he isn't enough of a feminist to be able preempt potential offense to some people by spelling it out.
Therefore, I take issue with the declaration
Please don't say "it had to be from his perspective, he wrote it." That misses the point by a good margin.
It absolutely does NOT miss the point.
The urge to protect is natural and laudable, no matter which sex is exhibiting it. It's human.
Further, from the article, I do not think it's at all clear that the hack doctor would necessarily be treating anyone else any better. He was obviously phoning it in, probably just wanted to leave at the end of his shift and leave the hard thinking and out-of-ordinary diagnostics for others. It's absolutely reasonable to suppose that a man with some equally arcane, painful condition who was admitted on his watch would get treated the same way. I call her condition "arcane" because it is nowhere near as common as kidney stones or appendicitis, etc., which is the kind of diagnosis he "phoned in".
My point is that it's not clear from this article AT ALL that the doctor is more misogynist than hack, and therefore not really worth getting lathered up by imposing an entirely feminist reading onto the article.
My initial reading produced the feeling that the the doctor is DEFINITELY negligent, and POSSIBLY misogynist. The two terms can be related, because negligence can flow from misogyny, but they are NOT synonyms.
And as as far as Doctor Who...well, the show is about THE DOCTOR. It is not about the supporting characters that rotate in and out. So it's expected that events in the show will be related from his perspective. At least, that's what I expect.
At any rate, there are at least as many TV shows, books, and articles, that come from almost a purely feminine perspective, and equal that number that present things from the perspectives of both sexes. Further, I see a disturbing amount of literature these days that makes men the butt of just about everything. I'm not sure why it's okay for us to get up in arms about perceived insults to women and just expect the men to take any old trash we want to sling their way.
Are we humans, or are we nothing more than the sum of our sexual organs?
My vote is for the former. From that perspective, and bringing this post back around to the OP, the first doctor is nothing more than a tired hack who should lose his medical license and most of his 401K.
The condescending nurses involved (I take note that no one is particularly outraged about them...is that because most of them are probably women?) should be reprimanded if they didn't advise the doctor he might be wrong, because it is their job to help the doctor not miss crucial clues to accurate diagnosis. Instead, they enabled and even perpetrated his condescending, hack behavior. And if they advised the doctor and he didn't pay attention, then they need to document so that their behinds are covered in the event of a reprimand or lawsuit.
We'll never have true equality until we bag all the prejudice (and prejudice includes that type of extreme hypersensitivity to context that allows us to infer or create insults where none exist, especially if the insults allow us to become victims in our own minds) and look at things in a more universal, humanistic, non-gendered way.
</rant>