Equality
dentistry Gender and organised
Liam Lynch puts forward the case for and against gender-based units within national dental associations
A
ll countries of the EU have national dentist representative organisations (DROs), often called Dental Associations
or Dental Chambers. The primary role of national DROs is to “defend the interests of individual members and the dental profession as a whole”ı
. In several countries, the representative
organisation is also the official trade union for dentists. Typically, DROs have official units (often termed committees) as part of their structure to look after special interest groups among their members. Examples of such units might be a Public
Dental Surgeons Committee or a General Practitioner Committee. This article is concerned with gender based units. To avoid repetition, the focus is on women’s committees.
The case for a Women’s Committee Fitzsimmons and Callan produced a report in 20ı5 called Filling the Pool: Achieving Gender Equality is Everyone’s Responsibility2
. In it they note ı3 factors
behind gender inequality. Organisational culture describes the
internal environment of an organisation that encompasses the assumptions, beliefs and values that members both create and replicate to guide their functioning3
. Healy and Kirton4 believe it makes sense for
unions to pay attention to gender based issues in their organisational culture: “The feminisation of the labour market in recent decades means that there is also a business case for unions to develop and sustain gendered policies of attraction and retention [of women]”. Caiszza states that: “Unions can also support women’s leadership by providing space for them to address their issues and obstacles as union
women. This can be done within training programmes, conferences, women’s committees, and networks at the local, regional and national levels.”5 With regards to the feminisation of dentistry, the conclusions of Jones, Schmitt and Woo6
are relevant: “As women move
toward majority status in the labour movement, the potential for unions to contribute to a broader work family agenda can only increase.” Cobble7
argues
that gender differences must be accommodated and that equality could not always be achieved by applying an identical standard of treatment to men and women. Thus, a women’s committee might support women dentists through the establishment of networks and to increase contacts of women in similar situations.
Continued » Ireland’s Dental magazine 23
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