{"id":4679,"date":"2025-06-20T06:37:23","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T05:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=4679"},"modified":"2025-06-20T06:37:23","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T05:37:23","slug":"the-fence-around-us-how-indias-medical-system-enables-cultural-misogyny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2025\/06\/20\/the-fence-around-us-how-indias-medical-system-enables-cultural-misogyny\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fence Around Us: How India\u2019s Medical System Enables Cultural Misogyny"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Anonymous*<\/p>\n

A baby girl starved to death in a South Indian hospital. No one was held accountable.<\/p>\n

I first heard about her during a forensic medicine lecture on starvation. The regular faculty were away, so a professor from a different specialty stepped in. As she listed various types of starvation, she paused to reflect on a case she witnessed years earlier as a young resident. A mother, dismayed at having delivered a second daughter, grew resentful when she learned that the newborn had a minor, yet easily operable, foot deformity. She pretended to breastfeed during rounds. The doctors missed the signs. When the mother disappeared, the baby died.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened to the parents?\u201d I asked once the class ended.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing,\u201d the professor replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean\u2014they got away with murder?\u201d<\/p>\n

She nodded sadly. \u201cIdeally, the doctor-in-charge should have filed a FIR (First Information Report) with the police. But this is India. Who has time for court when you\u2019re working in a government hospital?<\/a> There are just too many patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

So no case was reported. A little baby girl, quietly forgotten. Where was justice for her?<\/p>\n

This is not the story of just one baby. Thousands of girls are discarded in India\u2014aborted, abandoned, or ignored\u2014simply for being female.<\/a> To combat the cultural devaluation of girls, the government enacted the PCPNDT Act in 1994<\/a>, which outlaws prenatal sex determination to prevent female feticide.<\/p>\n

But to my shock, the mindset of misogyny is not limited to laypeople. I see it even among my medical school classmates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One evening, before a mock exam, I was casually speaking with a male peer. We were both relieved to hear that a mean-spirited professor would not be proctoring, as she was heavily pregnant. When I mentioned that she must be nearing her due date, he smirked.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s already delivered,\u201d he said. \u201cA girl. Serves her right.\u201d<\/p>\n

My stomach churned. For a moment, I hesitated. Should I say something? He was already old enough to know better\u2026 But I couldn\u2019t let it slide.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d I asked gently. \u201cEven the birth of a girl is precious.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure,\u201d he said, brushing it off. \u201cThey\u2019re just harder to raise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever that meant.<\/p>\n

If anything, young men were not being raised properly<\/a>. A male friend once confided in me about a conversation he overheard in the hostel. Another student\u2014someone training to be a doctor\u2014joked that if a girl on campus didn\u2019t \u201cwatch her tongue,\u201d his friends would sexually assault her. \u201cAnd when they do,\u201d he reportedly said, \u201cI\u2019ll join in too.\u201d<\/p>\n

My friend was horrified. So was I.<\/p>\n

The protection of women in Indian culture is often performative rather than genuine. For example, there is a metal picket fence surrounding the girls\u2019 hostel on my medical campus, but this is noticeably absent for the boys. What does this mean? Was this really \u201cprotection\u201d or a symbol of our oppression?<\/p>\n

What happens when curfews can no longer be imposed as we enter the hospital workforce? Last year, a female medical resident was raped and murdered<\/a> while on night duty at a Kolkata government hospital. This tragedy underscores the risks women face when a system meant to \u201cprotect\u201d them fails<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is painfully clear\u2014the problem is not just isolated events, but the very structure of India\u2019s medical system. Reform must begin at the roots.<\/strong><\/p>\n