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Family Practice, Vol 15, 363-368, Copyright © 1998 by World Organization of Family Doctors

ORIGINAL CLINICAL RESEARCH

On the margins: belonging in general practice for women part-timers and non-principals

R Pinder
Centre for the Study of Health, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK.

If flexible working options are 'a good thing', this paper asks why there are still some anxieties about the full integration of women part- timers and non-principals into the profession. Using in-depth exploratory interviews with 25 women GPs, it argues that part of the discomfort with women GPs who work part-time in general practice arises from the fact that they occupy a marginal status between the (public) world of work and the (private) world of the family. Ambiguity is unsettling. A key question is where do their loyalties lie? 'Commitment' is both a practical fact and a symbol of more potent anxieties: it is a mobilizing metaphor. This paper also argues that the flexibility issue cannot be understood in isolation from wider social, economic and political changes taking place, both in the fast-changing role of women (and men) in society, and in and around general practice itself. Women part-timers are actively challenging some of the more negative stereotypes which still surround flexible working options. Being on the margins has advantages: change and creativity tend to occur here more than at the centre.
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