Jezebel 
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New York, 8:57 PM
Thu Nov 26
3 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/18/09
I'm guessing that this doc does dress appropriately in the office, and that this is just an advertising gimick. Color me unimpressed and unconcerned.
11/18/09
My sister actually told me straight up never to go to hospitals in June if I can avoid it because they're crawling with new-minted trainee doctors and nervous med students. Scary stuff!
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If a good doctor happens to be beautiful, that's nice but it should be irrelevant to his or her practice. That's the message we're trying to promote here. Your looks, your body, and your sex should have nothing to do with your professional success as a woman, nor as a man.
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So agree. No FAIR.
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I don't think its about not being beautiful or womanly/manly but I think it's about how we percieve people in certain jobs and how they should act.
11/18/09
I would be equally disdainful of a male doctor who chose a similar photo for his ad.
11/18/09
(#tips) <-- why does this keep appearing automatically under my comments?
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#tips
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#tips
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Mine too! I have chosen to assume that it means that the commenting gremlins have decided our comments are advice-worthy.
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[gawker.com]
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I generally would agree with you but in this instance I think a member of either sex would be considered ridiculous for this.
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#tips
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#tips
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#tips
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People in this very thread have commented in similar ways on the Dr. 90210 dude.
You can criticize a woman without it being sexist, or slut shaming, or a refusal to acknowledge her choosing her choosy choice.
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My gut is with you, as well, though.
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I hate it too. But seriously, why shouldn't she use her brain and braun? Guys would.
Plus, to your point, if this were a male run institution using this pic, who'd be up in arms? Not Steve Lopez I'm sure.
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I work in marketing actually. If I got paid every time a man used that excuse I'd be rolling in it by now.
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That said, the harsh reality is that most professional fields have a great deal of bias against women and an inclination to take them less seriously than their male counterparts if they are good-looking--the two fields that I think this is most evident from my experience is medicine and law.
To use the legal field as an example: I've only worked in corporate law, which is a heightened old boys club if there ever was one. For job interviews, my schoolmates and I have been told by other female attorneys to dress as dowdy as possible and keep hair and make-up to a minimum. The supposed logic of this maxim is that if you are too attractive and care too much about your appearance, you are clearly not serious about law, business, or as intelligent as your frumpy peers.
The stereotype is that female attorneys should be plain, serious, and driven. And I'm sure it is probably similar with female doctors. For women in some fields, attractiveness can be something that holds them back, while attractive men are considered an asset.
As far as this doctor is concerned, I don't know. I think her case extends beyond just taking care of her appearance to blatantly advertising herself as a sex object--which has nothing to do with her capability as a doctor, but is a little unorthodox.
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@Pizza!Pizza!Pizza!: I have heard men in big law firms talk about X partner who wins big in jury trials because of how good looking they are, in a totally admiring way.
11/18/09
I sometimes wonder if our advice to younger women about anticipating sexism does more harm than good because it perpetuates the idea that women ought to play by those rules if they want to get ahead. It's one thing to encourage women to dress professionally, but I think the conventional wisdom does a lot to incite prejudices against the women who don't follow it.
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In the early '80s, my mother worked for Guerlin's offices here in New York. At the time, unless you were an executive, you worked at desks in the center of the floor. Unattractive women were put in the middle of the pack and had plants strategically-placed in front of their desks. (I am not making any of this up.) So, I guess the cosmetics industry is the exact opposite of what we're discussing.
11/18/09
That's the part that always confused me. I mean, "damned if you do/don't" has always pretty much been a static rule for corporate women, but what about that woman - Ann something, wasn't it? At Price Waterhouse? Who had to sue to make partner when it came out there were some memos circulating that the principal reasons she didn't were because she wore boxy suits and "not enough" makeup?
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#tips
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Second, people have never gone broke using sex to sell stuff or ideas. A man using a woman's sexyface(footnote to Hortense) to sell stuff or ideas is different than a woman using her own sexyface to sell stuff or ideas. The latter is much less irritating to my delicate ladybrain.
Will she hurt her cause? Maybe. I've learned never to underestimate the potential for outrage about women's sexuality, especially against women who aren't afraid to express it freely. She could get her message out to a lot of people who wouldn't have heard it otherwise, too.
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...but I take the Governator seriously, because he takes his /work/ seriously.
If Dr.Patel is a good doctor, she pays attention to her patients, and her attire has never created a hazard (like jewelry falling into a patient during surgery) or got caught on machinery, she's a good doctor. She can show all the cleavage she wants because boobs don't breathe out germs the way the mouth and nose does.
As a woman and a queer, I'm aware of the double standards and I'm careful about the way I act, however unfair it is, I'm not going to waste time every hour of my day in argument after argument when I can just, not Act Too Queer, and when it's hot, I don't take off my top even though it's legal in Canada, because I don't want to deal with the attention. ...those are MY choices, my self-preservation...because I just don't want to deal with crap.
...but for the women who do what they will in spite of negative attention, that's their choice too, and as a society, we have a greater responsibility to deal with those who give them the unwarranted negative attention, then to police their harmless behaviour.
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