The New York Post can be expected to blame the victim for her rape, but when you see the New York Times constructing an article around the idea that young female doctors are showing too much flesh:
There was just one problem. As she delivered her thoughtful patient presentations to me and the other attending doctors, it was hard not to notice her low-cut dress.
What?!!?
First of all it’s a nothing story. It’s a piece of fluff designed as a reason to show some photos of a model dressed in a short skirt and revealing décolletage. The writer is talking about Miami, for gods’ sake, and is presenting a few un-substantiated anecdotes.
But there’s more to it than this. It’s women who wear these revealing outfits, with the laughable exception of a single unshaven male doctor. The (old) men recounting the story are victims of the desires these outfits engender. They don’t know where to look. The patients are in medical danger!
One colleague commented that a particularly statuesque student “must have thought all her male patients were having strokes†when she walked in their exam room wearing a low-cut top and a miniskirt.
There are the regulation excuses about malpractice suits and the patients lack of respect for women dressed this way, but this is a thin cover for the classic moral panic. You have a fascination with the salacious details coupled with the moral outrage which provides “deniability”. I’d think it was just silly and pathetic, but it’s the sort of sexist attitude which actually causes a lot of trouble.
“We’re not trying to peddle soft porn here we’re illustrating an important social issue.” Yeah, right.
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