The day a patient’s relatives asked me to wash his socks.

Click bait? Lol. I wish

I have changed names and scenarios to protect the identity of people involved.

I am a doctor in a busy hospital and to be quite honest, patient experiences could be better here as relatives have to do almost everything a more efficient system should have taken care of. That notwithstanding, one day a patient of mine who couldn’t stand to his feet got vomit on his compression stockings. Do not ask me how. On noticing this, I pointed it out to the relatives- “please wash his socks, they’re stained”. They looked at me for a while and asked why I couldn’t “help them wash it". On explaining to them how that was not my job, they continued to press, somehow insinuating that I should be able to “wash”.

Here’s another scenario, as a medical student I once heard a doctor complain that some other doctors left the patient’s bedside untidy after they had done anything for the patient e.g needles, gloves, pieces of cotton wool, etc. However, his most important annoyance was “And there are a lot of women here. Why can’t they clean it up? I’m sure that’s how their kitchens at home are.”

Gender stereotypes in the workplace is a thing for both genders- male and female. Men would more likely be asked to lift heavy objects and women more likely asked to be asked to “wash socks". However, the difference is that somehow many women feel like they have no choice. Many women feel like they have to prove their womanhood by going out of their way to perform “gender-specific” acts which are not anywhere in their job description.

If you choose to pass out the snacks at the office meeting, then by all means do so. However, if you don’t feel like doing so, pick up your own snack and take your seat. Let everyone else sort themselves out. You don’t have to be the one to “clean up after the meeting" when everyone left their stuff lying around. You can clean your own space and leave.

Here’s the thing, as a woman sometimes, you’re made to believe you don’t have a choice. People feel entitled to a certain behaviour from you and somehow you believe it. No matter how accomplished you are you must be “womanly" or “wifely", if not you get threats of “not finding husband" or “not keeping your home".

Being “wifely" (whatever on earth that means) is not a bad thing. Doing all these domestic tasks at work (that nobody sent you) is not a bad thing. What’s a bad thing is believing you have to. You don’t.