Male chauvinism or I suddenly feel a feminist?

Greece, 10 Dec 2004. Ms. Anna Maria Vasilaki, for businesswoman.gr, interviews a worldwide accredited plastic surgeon, Mr. Ioannis Lyras. The last question Ms. Vasilaki asks is the following:

What would you advice a young woman that decides to work in your field? (i.e. plastic surgery)

His reply is:

A woman that decides to work in plastic surgery should know that she will be a part of 10% whereas men will always be 90%. The choice of women is male doctors. Women consider that mainly men can offer credibility for better safety.

The text in Greek as written at http://www.businesswoman.gr/article.php?lang=gr&cat=4&offset=20&article=728 can be found below:

Ποιες συμβουλές θα δίνατε σε μια νέα γυναίκα που αποφασίζει να ασχοληθεί με τον τομέα σας;

Η γυναίκα που αποφασίζει να ασχοληθεί με την πλαστική χειρουργική, θα πρέπει να ξέρει πως θα αποτελεί το 10% ενώ οι άντρες θα αποτελούν πάντα το 90%. Η επιλογή των γυναικών είναι οι άντρες ιατροί. Η γυναίκα θεωρεί, πως ο άντρας κυρίως μπορεί να της προσφέρει τα εχέγγυα για καλύτερη ασφάλεια.


So, what Mr. Lyras says, or actually advices his younger female colleagues is for them to realise and accept that they are and will ALWAYS be a minority. He also advices them to understand and accept that women (patients or clients) prefer and choose male plastic surgeons. They choose males because they trust them and feel safer with them.

Mr. Lyras is an accredited plastic surgeon. He is highly-educated, well-trained, very experienced, and very popular. He has been recognized abroad, including the Mecca of cosmetic surgery (Brazil). He is said to be sophisticated and he is accomplished. He is young, and has lived and practiced medicine abroad. He claims that his motto is ‘new ideas, classical ideals’.

Still, I feel his statement, his advice, his opinion are anachronistic, unprofessional, and chauvinistic. Chauvinism is neither a new idea, nor an ideal, though.

Even if he simply expresses the common thought and Hellenic social status quo, he fails to show that he opposes or rejects in some way such phallocentric views. He fails to encourage and support his young female colleagues. His advice does not seem to imply any hint of hope or support towards young female doctors.

His advice support in reality the view that females are not “..” for plastic surgery, that women will ALWAYS be a minority in the field of plastic surgery, that even women do not trust female plastic surgeons.

I find that a scent of discrimination rises also from the fact that he confines the plastic surgeon’s clientele to women (see his answer above “Women consider that ….”).

Mr. Lyras or Dr. Lyras if you prefer, is a physician paradigm. I am sure that he has worked hard to accomplish everything he has, and I sure hope that physicians do work and try hard as he does, to learn, and improve, and to offer. However, I find unacceptable that even today, even an accomplished physician (young for his professional status), even a well-educated scientist that has lived and absorbed elements from various cultures, sustains the phallocratic status prevailing in Hellenic society.

Am I disappointed? Absolutely not. I’m just really and profoundly surprised that a man of his ‘range’ encourages male chauvinism in the Hellenic professional medical field.

Am I angry? No, not again.

Am I hell-bent to change things and ‘survive’ in this environment? No. I’ve been simply determined, since 1987. I was a young teenager then, and a male endocrinologist advised me not to become a physician because medicine is so competitive and demanding that is not proper for women. Things don’t seem to have changed, do they?


Is this the modern Hellenic social reality? Is this the professional environment where female physicians should try to ‘thrive’? Is this the support accomplished physicians provide to young colleagues?

One’s opinion doesn’t prove the reality necessarily. However, his words speak the truth of an MD-high class club that encourages the preservation of paleolithic ideas and hinder the reformation and modernisation of professional, scientific, and social Hellenic culture.

I have never been a feminist with the strict philosophical view. I’ve always thought and still support that we are all equal no matter the gender, the nationality, no matter the beliefs or status. Still, I consider Dr. Lyras’ advice improperly male chauvinistic.

The time comes that I'll start my training at a hospital. Hopefully, I won't face this type of behavior. Fingers and toes crossed!

EK