ABSTRACT
In the late 1960s women began to document male bias in medicine, not just in Britain but all over the developed world (Ruzek 1978; Boston Women’s Health Book Collective 1971; Doyal 1983; Phillips and Rakusen 1978; Zimmerman 1987). During the 1970s these observations were combined with a number of other strands to form a substantial critique of both the theory and the practice of modern medicine (Ehrenreich 1978). The insights deriving from feminist analysis were among the most analytically sophisticated and deeply rooted of these new challenges to medicine but, despite their initial vitality, they have had relatively little impact on the way British doctors practise medicine. Many women have altered their own perceptions of health and healing, but it is less obvious that the majority of doctors have done the same (Elston 1981).
