By the time I had finished my surgical training, 16 years after starting medical school, only 4% of surgeons in Australia were female.
Don’t you want to have children? I recall many people asking when I declared my aspirations to become a surgeon in the 1980s. This was in stark contrast to the response my male colleagues, with ambitions for a surgical career, received.
Despite an almost equal gender split in medical students, this distribution did not follow through to specialty training, especially surgery. Different paths were perceived as more suitable for combining a career with parenting, more feminine, and more aligned with being a ‘good’ mother by society. This perception seems inversely related to job power, authority and remuneration. It contributes to the glass ceiling for women.
My desire to pursue my interest and passion was strong enough to overcome barriers, not follow what others wanted or expected, and chart my own course to become the first female to train in urological surgery in South Australia. All the while, feeling as if I was making a sacrifice, a compromise in my expected role of motherhood. By the time I had finished my surgical training, 16 years after starting medical school, only 4% of surgeons in Australia were female.
Fast forward 20 years, and still less than 14% of surgeons in Australia are female. Although there remains much ground to gain, The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons has prioritised efforts and policy to attract and retain female candidates, including part-time and flexible training.
Yet surgery is one example of high-paid male-dominated careers. STEM careers are higher paid and predicted to grow. Less than a third of STEM workers and only one in 5 in the space industry are women, with lower rates at senior levels. Only 4% of venture capital funding goes to solely female-founded companies in Australia.
When I embarked on my surgical training, little did I know that my career would be far from a compromise and instead present incredible opportunities to elevate my role as a mother. The ability to be self-employed created flexibility around start and finish times, time off for events like sports days, and annual leave during school holidays. My income afforded help with housework allowing free time to be filled with play and parenting activities rather than domestic duties. My level of education improved the skills I could pass on as a mother. As Queen Rania of Jordan famously said, “If you educate a woman, you educate a family”.
With time, I appreciated my career has provided skills in leadership, managing stress and sleep deprivation, business and financial literacy, years of teaching and training others, managing staff, negotiating, scientific methods, problem-solving, and public speaking, to name a few. These are all skills I have repeatedly drawn upon in my role as a mother. My self-esteem, role modelling, recognition and professional network added value to my role as a parent and gained respect from my son. I learned to replace working mother guilt with an understanding that my career made me a better parent than if I was not pursuing my dreams, and I have led by example.
I now see my career choice as an asset, not a compromise, in my role as a mother and woman. The future requires our children to live in a world of information, influence, and stressors. They will need a broad range of complex skills. For women who choose a career, our greatest achievements should not be inversely proportional to our success as mothers.
The messaging we send to young girls at an early age, that a career will be at odds with their ability to be the best mother, impacts their self-belief, dreams, and values and will clip their wings before they fly.
Samantha Pillay overcame physical limitations from congenital hip dysplasia and smashed the glass ceiling to become South Australia’s first female urological surgeon. She is a passionate businesswoman, founder, and entrepreneur and has published several books. Find out more at Home – Dr Samantha Pillay