: Gender, Elitism and Democratic Professionalism within Medicine
For further information phone Dr. Helga Hallgrímsdóttir at 250-472-4723 or email her at hkbenedi@uvic.ca. This is the plenary address for the International Workshop: Comparative Perspectives on Gender, Health Care Work, and Social Citizenship Rights. The three learned professions, divinity, law and medicine, have been looked at as the prototypes of real professions. These groups have been accorded status and social prestige in return to their altruistic service for society based on their esoteric knowledge. Much of professional theory, however, has focused on how professions use knowledge not only for problem-solving purposes but as a social capital. At the same time the service-orientation has been under-conceptualized or used to downsize women-dominated occupations, such as nurses, social workers and teachers. More recent approaches show how the very definition of profession is imbued with gender, power and elitism. The paper deals with the issue of a profession as a gendered concept. It is suggested that more focus on the service-orientation and a theoretical underpinning of care work can open up for a more democratic professionalism among health care and welfare professions.