ABSTRACT
At a January 1916 meeting of one of the branches of the Association of Registered Medical Women (ARMW), its attendees raised two intriguing questions regarding the establishment of a new organisation, the Medical Women's Federation (MWF). The question includes first, 'why should such an association is formed at all'? And second, 'why now'? Yet, as early as 1916, many individuals within the medical women's community encountered significant professional problems, most notably sex discrimination on the part of government bodies, while engaged in war-related work. After qualifying as physicians, medical women faced the difficult challenge of situating themselves as female practitioners within a profession still gendered as male. As befitted an all-female medical organisation in which scores of its members had long-standing ties to the feminist movement, the Medical Women's Federation also intervened in contemporary debates regarding the changing nature of women's work.
