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Women Physicians and the Gendered System of Professions

An Analysis of the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921

Linfield College

This is a textual investigation of the battle between the American Medical Association and the American Medical Women's Association over the 1921 Act for the Promotion of the Welfare and Hygiene of Maternity and Infancy—popularly called the Sheppard-Towner Act. Based on the rhetorical debate between these two groups as revealed in their respective medical journals, the author outlines how the trajectory, content, and demise of Sheppard-Towner were fundamentally structured by gendered intra- and interprofessional struggles among physicians, midwives, nurses, and social workers. By analyzing Sheppard-Towner within Abbott's (1988) system of professions, the author demonstrates how gender shapes the boundaries of jurisdictional disputes. More specifically, the author demonstrates how gender alliances and gender fractures between and among professions not only account for the rise and fall of Sheppard-Towner, but are part and parcel of the histories of professionalization projects generally.

Work and Occupations, Vol. 25, No. 2, 229-255 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/0730888498025002005


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