Dear Sir,
The opinions expressed by the president in her message on the role of gender in veterinary medicine (Can Vet J 2003;44:533–535) are common among the members of the veterinary profession, and these views are quite disconcerting. As members of the scientific community, I would have thought that veterinarians would have been an unlikely group to support such biased opinions. There is a significant difference between causation and correlation, of which we all should be aware. Just because the number of females in the profession has increased, the salaries of veterinarians have stagnated, and the number of veterinarians going into large animal practice has decreased does not mean that the increase in number of women has caused these changes. A number of factors have contributed to the problems our profession faces today, but the focus has been on the changing gender demographic rather than other more legitimate causes.
Take the “less than optimal” salaries of veterinarians, for example. The other day, a large animal client called me, outraged about the price of a bill, which was quite a reasonable amount. It seems that, in general, both large animal and small animal clients have certain expectations of what the cost of veterinarian services should be and that to avoid conflicts with clients over bills, most veterinarians, males and females alike, don't charge enough for their services. If veterinarians will not charge more for their services, they cannot possibly increase their salaries. To blame the low salaries on females is ridiculous when there is a more serious underlying problem in the profession.
In addition, I, my former classmates, and my coworkers, both male and female, do not want a decreased salary or decreased standard of living. Salary is always a high priority when choosing a job, especially for students when they are graduating with more and more debt. As a new graduate looking for my first job, I was never offered a lower wage because I was female. Nor did I choose to work for a clinic that was offering a lower salary than the rest. The clinics that were advertising for new graduates all offered similar salaries and benefits, and there were as many female clinic owners as there were male.
Furthermore, the following factors must be considered when wages are being compared: Years out of school, degree of specialization, practice ownership, and part- versus full-time jobs.
Since veterinary medicine was formerly a male dominated profession, more male than female veterinarians have been out of school longer and are, therefore, more likely to have some degree of specialization, be practice owners, or both. Thus males are more likely to make higher wages than females, on average, for reasons other than gender.
One of the other issues discussed in the message was the fact that more women than men are applying to veterinary college. This “feminization” of veterinary medicine is also occurring to a lesser degree in human medicine and dentistry, thus the switch in gender may have nothing to do with the profession itself. Also, men, on average, have lower academic grades than females at the high school and secondary educational level. Since it is becoming more difficult to obtain admission to all professional colleges, and since academic grades play a large role in the application process for all of these professions, perhaps the lack of male applicants has more to do with a broader societal problem than with the professions themselves.
Finally, the statement that “the feminization of veterinary medicine has……changed the profession…… the caring and nurturing aspects may have been enhanced……” is an outright sexist comment. Not all men are uncaring and lack the ability to nurture; in fact, the majority of men are extremely caring and nurturing. The personality attributes of caring and nurturing are human characteristics and are not limited to, or exaggerated in, one sex or the other. Perhaps the cultural and societal views on animal welfare, especially where food animals are concerned, has changed for the better, thanks to the work of both male and female producers, veterinarians, and others.
So, in summary, let us remember that it is always easy to equate correlation with causation. Maybe, instead of blaming the gender shift in the profession, the Association should focus on developing and changing society's views on veterinarians, the value (monetary and otherwise) of their services, and on gender roles in general.