Who would have thought that health care could be masculine and macho? 
Certainly not me.
The areas I worked in where so female dominated that you were at risk of thinking that women were the only people working in Health, with the exception of some really brave medical consultants, who had been lured in at a young age. Although I guess that is what you get for working within the Paediatrics specialty.
Last night I went along to the Cambridge Health Network event in London on Polyclinics. Polyclinics are basically super-duper GP surgeries that are the latest NHS thing. It is convened by some fairly impressive women – excellent. However, You have no idea how surprising it was to find the room filed with bearded men in grey suits. This is of course a slight exaggeration as there was a small number of women but goodness a LOT of men. And the conversation did take a small dive when someone asked whether the government had the ‘balls’ to implement polyclinics and one rather testosterone filled fella replied that his workplace had “so many balls about the place that the used them for chandeliers and drinks mats.” Extraordinary visual image!
It is however interesting to hear such a macho conversation being had when you are discussing provision of health care to people, not beating the opposition in a soccer game or blowing up stuff.
Clearly these people are very influential and are where it is at when it come to health care provision. However, it did feel like a very exclusive conversation that only those that have ‘balls’ could participate in and I wonder what effect this has on decision making.
