The Medicine Between Us: An Interpersonal Architecture

Part 3. The Goldilocks Dilemma: A Bitch by Any Other Name

Simply put, the Goldilocks Dilemma is the almost universal experience women in medicine have of being characterized in a completely polarized fashion as either being too little or too much: a doormat or a bitch. It’s not just a social insult; it’s a control mechanism that forces women to self-abandon—either by shrinking into borrowed authority or by being punished for self-authority. It also distracts attention from our abundant capabilities and vaporizes them by acting as if they didn’t exist.

When we are authoritative, what would be seen as strength and competence in a man is perceived as being a bitch in a woman. This is not the same as being “the bitch,” but the two “bitch states” can coexist.

“The bitch” is a particular form of subservience—what might be called, in a man, being a “tool.” This is someone who performs for another, selling out their sense of self in service to an authority figure’s needs and expectations. “The bitch” (or tool) will do almost anything to garner the favor of someone whose power they want to be identified with, or to gain their money.

In contrast, “a bitch” is not seen as self-abasing but as self-serving: disconnected, out of touch with others, and dangerous. “The bitch” is embarrassing but becomes dangerous when wielding borrowed authority, thereby simultaneously becoming “a bitch.”

The common thread between being too strong (a bitch) and too weak (a doormat or the bitch) is that neither role is self-determined. They are assigned, and both function to interfere with professional and personal development inwardly and outwardly. They diminish the woman and serve as proof that she is incapable of fitting into the power structure and culture of modern medicine. They are meant to shut her up and castrate her, perhaps not consciously but structurally.

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