Gender in medicine (2020)

In my work, I aim to question perceptions of gender—especially the concept ‘Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus’.

I challenge the idea that men and women's personalities and capabilities are biologically determined by their gender. This idea conveniently sets men at the top of the food chain, in terms of money and positions of power. My argument is that we learn how to be male and how to be female from the moment we are born. One way we learn this is as children is from films, advertising and popular culture.

The photograph featured here is called ‘Sleeping Beauty Performs An Operation’. My sister is actually a transplant surgeon at Guy's and St Thomas' and also features in the photo alongside myself in the Sleeping Beauty costume.

This forms part of a photographic series called, ‘Disney Princess Jobs’. In it, I took the six main Disney princesses and put them in male-dominated jobs, such as scientist, surgeon and lawyer. I also gave them all degrees. Ironically, people often refer to the series as ‘Disney Princesses In Male Jobs’.