Idealists or Pragmatists? Progressives and Separatists among Australian Medical Women, 1900-1940

Abstract

Histories of Australian medical women have long relied on timeless narratives of valiant "pioneers" battling opponents among the "male profession". The not-so-embedded implications of progress-through-struggle seemed well-suited to a settler society. This article challenges that approach by examining the foundation and development of the Rachel Forster Hospital, a Sydney hospital created in the aftermath of the First World War, and staffed exclusively by women. The article argues that medical history, and particularly the history of women in medicine, needs to be cautious of such well-worn notions as the "male dominance" of medicine, and the assumption that medical practitioners shared a common outlook. I insist, moreover, that separatist medical women and their institutions must be seen in the context of their society, by demonstrating how the choices they made and the reactions they provoked reflected their time and place. The success of the Rachel Forster during the interwar years illustrates the crucial role played by interactions between medical considerations and wider issues of public policy. Sensitivity to the prevailing intellectual and political debates is important in understanding the actions and motivations of medical women in any period.

All this fuss about a trivial incident? women, hospitals and medical work in New South Wales, 1900-1920

“…Even so, at first glance it would seem that women from Sydney University were reasonably successful: 75% obtained a residency in the years between the first female graduate (in 1892) and 1905. [14] Jessie Aspinall was the daughter of Rev. The majority of appointments that had been made to women were at children's or maternity hospitals; the only appointments to general hospitals (a third of the total) were to women who were prepared (and indeed able) to travel interstate, especially to Adelaide in South Australia.…”