A dentist and a gentleman, the significance of gender to the establishment of the dental profession

grantor: University of TorontoThis study examines the role played by gender relations and ideology in the establishment of the male-dominated profession of dentistry in Ontario. Gender ideology and relations characteristic of Ontario society in the period during which Ontario dentistry was establishing its professional status (1868-1918) became embedded in dental practice and the dentist's role. Gender provided a useful tool for professionalising dentists. It provided a script from which they could define their own role and relations, and a means for legitimating that role to the public. While dentists drew on a number of legitimating ideologies and contemporary beliefs in structuring and legitimating their profession, the language of gender permeates their efforts to establish their professional status. The notion of gender utilized by Ontario dentists was very class and race specific. Dentists as middle-class, Anglo-Saxon men had a very particular notion about what defined a man, and by extension what made a good dentist. Gender identity was fused with class and race identities into an inseparable whole. Thus, in discussing the impact of gender on the establishment of the dental profession, this study argues that gender cannot be seen entirely separately from other characteristics and relations such as class and race. Data for this study were primarily drawn from professional documents and journals published in Ontario between 1868--the year in which Ontario dentists began organizing--and 1918. These documents and journals provided a wealth of information on the processes of profession formation during Ontario dentistry's first fifty years and on the role of gender in these processes. Dentistry has been a male-dominated occupation since before it organized as a profession and it remains a male-dominated profession today. It is my contention that the way in which dentistry was structured by and for middle-class men has ensured that dentistry remained male-dominated for decades after its initial organization. While women were never formally excluded from dentistry, the way in which the profession was structured provided inherent barriers and difficulties for women attempting to pursue dental practice.Ph.D