A Woman's Place is at the Table

As I watched Donald Trump pace behind Hillary Clinton during the second presidential debate, I noticed myself growing increasingly uncomfortable. At the time, I attributed my discomfort to the generalized anxiety accompanying this particularly contentious election cycle. It was only when I saw the Saturday Night Live parody of that debate that I realized what had truly spooked me. It was the way Alec Baldwin, playing Donald Trump, lurked menacingly behind Kate McKinnon, playing Hillary Clinton, throughout the event. It was on his final swerve across the frame, to the soundtrack of Jaws, that I understood the source of my distress. There was a time in my own past when a man had lurked menacingly behind me. And there had been absolutely nothing funny about it. I was a third-year medical student planning on a career in surgery. I come from a long line of surgeons, including my father, my grandfather, and several uncles and great-uncles. These were men dedicated to their craft, supremely confident and competent, and venerated by all who knew them. A few of them had treated me at key points in my own life. My grandfather, an ObGYN, had delivered me. My father, a neurosurgeon, had cared for me after a serious concussion. My uncle Harry, a general surgeon and the head of the local emergency room, had sewn up a gushing laceration on my forehead when I was seven. I wanted to be like them. To scrub into a sterile field and do what mere mortals couldn't. To rid bodies of disease. ...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news