(The untold Stories of India’s First Women in Medicine by Kavitha Rao – A book Review)

Disclosure: This article also published within the organization I work for. Posted here with permission from organization

What the surroundings would have looked like for a girl born in 1870s of India? What she could have aspired for? How the society viewed and treated the girls in those times? Most likely she would have been married off by the age of nine – it was considered unlucky to let girls remain unmarried after the age of ten. The husband could be another young boy, if lucky, or could be a middle-aged man too. Girls were not sent to school for education, educating a girl was considered unnecessary. Being widowed at young age is common and there is no practice of remarriage for women. Economically they had to depend on father before marriage and on husband post marriage. If widowed destined to poverty. You get the picture – confined to home, barely left their house, with not much freedom. All these enforced in the name of divine will and laws of nature. Situation isn’t much different across the world during this period. Yes, it is relatively better than India, but only a little. Across US and UK, women were considered not fit for science and maths – their brains are different and not wired for these challenging subjects 🤦🏻‍♂️

In this midst, few women dared to challenge the status quo. They defied the social order to ask WHY and WHY NOT. They cracked the ceiling open to pursue and realize their passion. Passion to become doctors. This was at a time when medical schools did not admit women for medical courses across the world. Lady Doctors by Kavitha Rao, takes us through the journey about few of these brave women. Barriers they had to climb, walls they had to break, battles they had to fight, insults they had to bear, bigotry and discrimination they had to overcome, social stigma they had to put up with, and physical threats they had to endure. From the neighbors, students and faculty of the school, and colleagues at work. How they overcame the hesitation of patients to consult women doctors. It is not just men who stood in their way, many women also did not believe that women could be capable doctors, including prominent ones like Florence Nightingale. Even though the word doctor is gender-neutral, society coined the word Lady Doctors to refer to women doctors, appeared first in 1870s in the UK by British Medical Journal.

We never get to hear about these pioneers who paved the way for future generations of women (not just women doctors). They do not appear in our textbooks. As the author laments in the book, a crater in Venus is named after Anandibai, but not a single road or school in India. Author has done a pain stacking work of chasing the source materials to get the facts for writing this book. Many of them did not keep diaries or write their autobiographies. In the case of Haimabati Sen, journals she wrote were hidden in a trunk for years since no one from her family thought it worthy enough to share. Kavitha Rao covers good ground from Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett, Edinburgh Seven to Anandibai Joshi, Kadambini Ganguly, Rukhmabai Raut, Haimabati Sen, Muthulakshmi Reddy, and Mary Poonen Lukose.

It is an enlightening and painful read at the same time. It shudders me to imagine, how the current world would look like if these women hadn’t broken the walls and opened the doors. Through sheer determination they overcame the intense opposition they faced, religious, caste-based, and patriarchal. Few revered Indian freedom fighters while they wanted freedom from British, opposed education for women. Chapter on Kadambini let you reflect on challenges faced by working women in current times. It pains you when you read about brilliant women doctors who won medals at university were forced to give them up because men felt threatened. Trauma Haimabati Sen went through as a child bride is heartbreaking and shattering to read.

Imagine this: It is March 1887. Rukhmabai Raut, a young woman of twenty-two years, stands in a Mumbai courtroom. She got married at the age of eleven, never lived with her husband, and never wants to. She would become the first Hindu wife to do the unthinkable: seek a divorce. Judge is going to decide whether a Hindu wife can break the sacrament of child marriage. In 1887, she argued that she was too young to give consent to the marriage, she could not be bound to it. This was an attack on the entire Hindu family system, and the concept of marriage as a sacred union. Her biggest opponent: Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the revered freedom fighter. The ruling: woman must live with her husband or go to jail for six months. Any guess on what did Rukhmabai pick? She practiced passive resistance even before Gandhi came into the scene (that had to wait another 20 years). She chose the jail term. Isn’t this a whistle worthy, standing ovation, moment? I couldn’t stop talking about this to my family and friends? How did she do that? Isn’t she a great role model for tenacity, mental strength, clarity, and passion? After this bitter battle, she goes on to pursue her passion to become a doctor, and now we have a hospital named after her in Surat, India.

By the time we come to Muthulakshmi Reddy and Mary Poonen, wheels of progress have moved along. Yes, they also faced gender, caste, and religious discrimination but by this time stigma against women’s education has come down and both these women did leave stronger imprints – one as a lawmaker, and another as first surgeon general, setting up institutions that stands tall till today. All these women had something in common: they were fighters.

Kavitha Rao has done an exceptional job of bringing this book at the right time, when the focus is on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness). Challenge with progress and enlightenment is that it doesn’t leave footprints. We take it for granted. As mentioned, our textbooks don’t cover the hard-fought battles to reach where we are today. It is as if they have been erased from history. As the author argues in her book, their forgotten lives hold many lessons for modern women. How did they defy the popular idea that women were unfit for medicine? How did they persuade medical colleges to open their doors? What did they do to escape the suffocating bonds of family, caste, and society? How did lady doctors go from being called `whores’ to highly respected professionals? It will take multiple generations for prejudices to vanish from the society. Can we take the progress for granted? I don’t think so. When there is stress in the society, which can be due to multiple factors like globalization, unemployment, weakening economy and pie size going down, socio-political dynamics can bring the buried prejudices out in the open, and Us Vs Them, etc. Scriptures and pseudo-science will be quoted to claim superiority or to discriminate. I highly recommend Lady Doctors not only to get an understanding of Diversity and Discrimination but also to go through self-introspection and answer the question, am I really free of prejudices?