Abstract:
Histories of Australian medical women have long relied on timeless narratives of valiant 'pioneers' battling opponents among the 'male profession'. The not-so-embedded
implications of progress-through-struggle seemed well-suited to a settler society. This article
challenges that approach by examining the foundation and development of the Rachel
Forster Hospital, a Sydney hospital created in the aftermath of the First World War, and
staffed exclusively bv women. The article argues that medical history, and particularly the
history of women in medicine, needs to be cautious of such well-worn notions as the 'male
dominance' of medicine, and the assumption that medical practitoners shared a common
outlook. I invist, moreover, that separatist medical women and their institutions must be
seen in the context of their society, by demonstrating how the choices they made and the
reactions they provoked reflected their time and place. The success of the Rachel Forster
during the interwar years illustrates the crucial role played by interactions between medical
considerations and wider issues of public policy. Sensitivity to the prevailing intellectual
and political debates is important in understanding the actions and motivations of medical
women in any period.
