Wednesday, March 11, 2009

He's Not a Medical Writer, She Is...

Usually posts on medical writing blogs don't cause a lot of reaction--but this one apparently has, judging from the number of cross links on different blogs. The issue is the casual observation that there are more female medical writers than male medical writers.

A good point is that the ratio of AMWA members is greater on the female side (see the article here). This is a similar trend I've seen in some other writers associations I'm part of. So, are there really more women medical writers or are women simply more likely to join a professional association?

I don't know and I think it doesn't really matter. If they can write, have the passion and time to do it, then they should just do it. Men too. What do you think?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The writers at my former workplace used to speculate about the predominance of women in medical writing. My former supervisor thinks that the male ego gets in the way of medical writing, because men just can't accept being omitted from the author list on every manuscript they help to write.

Anonymous said...

Or they just don't keep quiet about their displeasure at being omitted.... as a female medical writer, believe me, I am sometimes VERY displeased when I put in more work than half the authors did but I'm not listed, but I keep my mouth shut; some psychologists say that females are brought up to keep their mouth shut, and males are not. That is not always the case, I know (just listen to all the "women talk too much" jokes out there and the stereotype of the shy, silent male nerd) but.... I don't know.....