I give my parents credit for always believing that I could accomplish anything.  I never thought that I was worthless or could do less just because I was a female.  Never. That is...until someone said these words, “maybe you didn’t get the job because you are a female”.  

A job that I applied for back in the day was perfect for me.  I had many years of experience, a degree in the field, and studied abroad and learned from marketing and fashion companies in Europe.  (I know...my yoga pants and mom bun motif are camouflaging that part of my history)  When the form letter came in the mail with the “we are sorry…”, well, I moved on and found the same job with a different company that actually wanted to hire me.  That sliver of doubt though has stuck with me a bit and I will never forget the feeling I had from that statement, “maybe you didn’t get the job because you are a female”.

I do realize that there is a negative perception about women that some individuals apparently think is true. Recently, one of those negative thoughts about women were actually printed in the Dallas Medical Journal.  

According to 6abc.com, the journal asked its members the following:  

“We asked our physicians if they believe a pay gap exists between male and female physicians. If so, what is the cause? What steps can physicians take as individuals and as a community to address this?"

Gary Tigges, a Plano internist, stated that female physicians "do not work as hard and do not see as many patients as male physicians”.  The reasons that he gave are "because they choose to, or they simply don't want to be rushed, or they don't want to work the long hours. Most of the time, their priority is something else.... Family, social, whatever. Nothing needs to be 'done' about this unless female physicians actually want to work harder and put in the hours. If not, they should be paid less. That is fair." 

As you can imagine, there was some uproar about the statement that he gave and he later apologized.  (You can find that apology at this link)  

There are many other tweets and statements on this subject and a simple search of @GaryTigges will lead you to those.

Is there a pay gap between men and women in the medical field?  Medicine isn't my area of expertise or training but we do have many in our community that work for Mayo Clinic or Olmsted Medical Center.  So, what do you think? Are the pay gaps between men and women real? Feel free to send your opinion to jessica.williams@townsquaremedia.com  (I am happy to keep your comments anonymous)

Listen to Jessica Williams weekdays from 10 am until 2 pm on Y105FM!

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