At work, too, we run the risk of “dissolving” away. The same subjection, the same reduction to stereotype also occurs here. The oppression of female medical workers—whether lay healers or officially recognized practitioners—and the establishment of a male monopoly in medicine, which happened in Europe during the Renaissance and in the United States toward the end of the nineteenth century, provides a perfect illustration of this. When women were allowed to return to the medical profession, it was as nurses; that is, in the subordinate position of assistants to the Great Men of Science, a
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