Driving ambitions: women in pursuit of a medical education, 1890-1939

Abstract

This article focuses on the life-histories of some of the women who sought a medical education between 1890 and 1939, reflecting upon the extent to which these accounts share the features of a literary genre, the quest or the folk-fairy tale. It is suggested that these autobiographical and biographical narratives tell us a great deal about the tensions between gender prescriptions and vocational ambitions, particularly if they are read with careful attention to form and metaphor. Here I examine the importance of certain trials and rites de passage (such as entering the dissecting room), as well as notions of drive, ambition and the desire to ‘take control’

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