Hippocrates' Handmaidens Women Married to Physicians - Haworth Women's Studies

“The doctor's wife is like other women . . . She is no longer part of the creative, collective effort, but has been powerfully pushed aside , and like women all over the world, she was made into the proverbial handmaiden. Unlike her historical counterpart, she would not be in charge of herself, her body, or her destiny or that of her children. She would spend her life doing the bidding of a gender dedicated to healing while simultaneously embracing force, sterility, and technology without touching. She would provide the soft, female perspective to the men heading a profession that at once ironically values healing and life all the while perpetuating authority, fear, and control.”--From Hippocrates'Handmaidens

This riveting new book tells what it is like to be a woman married to a physician. The author, a counseling psychologist and doctor's wife herself for 31 years, has compiled a comprehensive look at these women--from interviews with more than 100 doctors'wives around the country--and their most intimate feelings and experiences.

Until now, there has been little information available about doctors'wives, especially from their perspective. Because they have played their roles well--as self-effacing, staunch supporters of their husbands and their husbands'work--they have kept quiet. In Hippocrates'Handmaidens, these women speak candidly about the benefits and the disadvantages of being married to physicians. They share their universal fears and frustrations--of being abandoned for another woman and often, of having few skills or little work experience if they are; of fitting into the very rigid and highly critical medical community; of their feelings of jealously and/or competition with their husbands; and of their lack of power and control in their marriages. They also address the sanctity of medicine and doctors in our society and the traditional values and paternalistic attitudes within the medical community that directly influence their lives. Comments such as “Do you know what it is like to be married to God?” “Doctors take care of their own. It's the wives who are forgotten,” and “I have a vague notion of what it is like to have to sit in the back of the bus,” are common.

Hippocrates'Handmaidens unravels the misunderstandings and myths that surround the lives of doctors--and more importantly, their wives. This fascinating book gets to the core of how and why the doctor's wife is the last great stronghold of the feminine mystique in America today. It is an important and readable book for women's studies scholars, therapists, counselors, doctors'wives or women contemplating marriage to doctors, and women and men who are involved in the training and practice of medicine.

Among the myriad topics covered in Hippocrates'Handmaidens are:

• Experiences of the doctor's wife--fulfilling a mother's fantasy by becoming a doctor's wife; the role of self esteem and identity; social expectations; perfectionism; and jealousy and lack of ambition
• The husband/doctor-wife relationship--repression and denial; sex and intimacy, or lack of it; the extra-marital affair; who controls the money and finances; coping with pressure; and vacations and leisure time
• Interaction of the doctor's wife with society--dependence on others; friendships with women; the role of the women's medical auxiliary; hardships of malpractice; the strain of moving and relocation; should you work in or out of your husband's office; and looking to the future in all aspects of being a doctor's wife