Female doctors becoming 'trophy' wives: Is quota the right move? Posted on 27 November 2014 at 05:37 Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) President Dr Hameed announced today that 50 per cent of female graduates never work after graduation. This comes after last month's news of the new 50:50 quota for females to males in all public and private medical colleges. Feminists, anarcho-primitivists, socialists and postmodernists alike have raised a kerfuffle over this decision, citing gender bias and inequality as a problem in our society. Nothing can be farther from the truth as far as gender equality is concerned. As a nation, we are afflicted by the habit of losing sight of the forest for the trees. We have had a female prime minister, a female foreign minister, a female Nobel Prize winner and now that girls are allowed to join the army, hopefully a female military dictator as well. Explore: The doctor glut On a serious note, though, know that the ratio in state-run and private medical colleges is approximately 65 females : 35 males. In the top medical colleges of Punjab – where the average strength of a class is 300 – figures are skewed in favour of girls even more. Till the late 1990s, there was a 30 per cent quota for females in all medical colleges but it was removed due to an injunction by the Lahore High Court. As a result of PMDC’s new regulations, the number of females in medical colleges will go down and male students will get more opportunities. Was it a necessary step? Was there a need for establishing this unique quota for the “non-oppressed” majority? Some statistics should be examined before hastening to a conclusion.
