Dr. Puta

Ever since I got home, after finishing up my four-year stint at pre-med prison, I have been consuming books like I only have 3 more months to live. Well, technically, that’s almost true. No applause please, but I finally got into medical school. Ok, fine, applaud away. No really, I am so happy to finally have a concrete direction in life, a tangible future. My stress level has been reduced significantly, I no longer bear the burden of ambiguity that had been weighing me down for months. So, with this newfound relief, I have taken to my chair, perfectly situated, facing the sun, in my dad’s backyard. It’s no stolen Wyndham lounger, Blue Diamond beachfront, vacation rules Miami Beach, but it certainly does the trick. It has only been a week and a half and I have already read 3 books. I have all the time in the world to work on my tan and my literary database and I have been loving every minute of it.
The books I read are novels, mostly about fucked-up people with fucked-up lives, who somehow discover who they are through a series of unfortunate events. Really encouraging, I know. Yet, despite their less than cheerful motifs, they are a welcome change from the mind-numbing monotony of Ebbing and Gammon’s General Chemistry (I will forget you not, old friend. For if I do, let my right hand forget its skill). These books are beautifully written, poetic stories about life and death, love and hate, sex and well…sex. I devour every syllable, wishing I could write with even a fraction of the talent that these authors possess. But I can’t. So I blog. I’ll become a doctor instead.
In one of the books I just finished (yes, I am going somewhere with this), the author drew my attention, yet again, to the fact that we live in a man’s world. The protagonist, on her road to self-discovery, ponders the idea that “men whistled and stared and yelled things at you, and you had to take it or you get raped or beat up. A man’s world meant places men could go but not women. It meant they had more money, and didn’t have kids, not the way women did, to look after every second. And it meant that women loved them more than they loved the women, that they could want something with all their hearts, and then not” (Fitch, 142). I had heard it before, this man’s world, and I, like the protagonist, knew that it meant that women still only make 76 cents to the dollar and that a woman alone is a walking victim waiting to happen. Every woman I know feels the brunt of this man’s world. We all peer out from underneath the glass ceiling, we all know what it feels like to be undressed by someone’s eyes. I’m every woman.
This is a widely recognized phenomenon. Everybody, save for those ignorant masses who consciously choose to ignore the obvious and maintain that women want to be inferior, that they desire to live their lives barefoot and pregnant (yeah, I am talking to you), knows that patriarchy still very much exists. I hope I haven’t surprised anyone.
But, what happens when the tables are turned? Last summer, I had the amazing opportunity to work at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Ah, New York. You Mecca of poor life decisions. I filled my days with groundbreaking research and patient interaction and my nights with binge drinking and cleavage sporting. It was glorious. Yet, despite the excitement of knowing that I lived around the corner from Crumbs, I was most energized, during my stay in the land of freaks, hipsters, and enormous pigeons, by the grunts, winks, and strange sounding Spanish phrases that I am sure were far dirtier than I assumed that came from the people living and working in the neighborhood surrounding Mount Sinai.
Being the man’s world that it is, I was never safe from the wanton advances and sexual innuendo that permeated 96th and Madison. The dude who sold gyros on the corner called me puta, the 3rd floor janitor winked and gestured every time I walked by the broom closet, and the grocery store bagger even had the audacity to look at my Mount Sinai ID and catcall me by name.
Now, I am not gonna lie. Sometimes, the attention was exciting, almost flattering. I mean, come on, I’m no Jennifer Aniston (who I, incidentally, do not find all that attractive. All she has is good hair. Get over it), so having a guy attracted to me at every corner was kinda cool. Cool, but piggish. Girl power!
But here’s the rub. Two weeks into my time at the hospital, my boss freed up some time for she and I to make patient rounds together. Since I was going to be shadowing her in the hospital proper, I had to get my own lab coat. Awesome, I know. I felt like freakin Meredith Grey. I was born to wear a doctor’s lab coat.
So, when I was finally asked, on that first day of my new life as a make believe doctor, to go visit a patient in a building down the street, I was elated. Anything to wear the coat in public. I strolled down Madison like I owned the place, making sure I walked with that doctory air of urgency, a hint of ego in my step. I walked from building to building, expecting to be mistaken for a real doctor and asked to step in to help stop someone from bleeding to death, or at least asked for directions. But I got nothing other than a dirty look from a nurse and a blister on my foot from walking with that bounce. I returned to my office, feeling annoyingly defeated. Yet, just as I was about to go on facebook and pretend I was doing actual work, I realized, to my amazement, that the gyro dude didn’t ask me, as he often did, if I wanted a taste of his meat, the 3rd floor janitor never even looked up from his mop, and the grocery bagger only asked if I wanted paper or plastic…mam.
Did I look exceptionally ugly that day? Did I get pen on my face when I was doodling Mrs. Sidney Crosby all over the steno pad while listening to the morning messages? Did I step in dog poop or something? What happened? Where did all the attention go?
And then I realized where it went. It was hiding underneath my lab coat. Evidently, the lab coat was more than just my lame attempt at getting that hot resident in cardio to notice me. It was a status symbol, an educational red flag, a blinking light that screamed “stop, respect me, I am a doctor, not a woman”. Suddenly, calling me “blue eyes” and thrusting your pelvis was socially unacceptable. I had been transformed from every woman into THAT woman. That’s Dr. Puta to you.
Does this mean that fancy acronyms and a mountain of debt from student loans award women the right to command respect? Does this mean that going to professional school exempts me from the gender divide? Does getting into medical school really just mean a get out of jail free card from the minimum wage workers of society who want to do me in the alley behind Duane Reade? If it is this sort of secret agreement that allows me to circumvent the standard daily dose of sexual harassment, then why will I still make 76 cents to the dollar? Why will I still have to fight in order to be taken seriously by my peers and colleagues? Why will I probably be considered a workaholic, absentee mother when I put my children in day care while I save lives?
Because, while being a doctor or a lawyer or a business executive may excuse me from having to listen to the catcalling, mostly because my status scares the crap out of the locals, it still doesn’t exempt me from being a woman. I still will be, despite my career and my successes and my fancy lab coat, by society’s standards, out of place. Get back to the kitchen and make me a pie!
I wonder what the gyro dude would think if he knew that I was wearing an apron and pearls under that lab coat.