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The 3 July issue provides an interesting illustration of how APA portrays women. In the entire 48-page issue, the only picture of a woman psychiatrist (page 12) occurs with her 7-month-old baby, both of whom attended the annual meeting. Group pictures of nonpsychiatrist women show women as wife, mother, APA staff member, musician, judge, spectator, demonstrator, and mother to quintuplets conceived through IVF (pages 7, 12, 13).
There are no pictures of individual women while there are 12 of men. Of the 32 pictures of identifiable men, most are psychiatrists who are in leadership positions and are discussing important aspects of psychiatry or APA business.
Women are better represented in the large advertisement pictures, where six adult women and two girls extol the benefits of Prozac, Luvox, Zoloft, or Effexor for depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (pages 9, 14, 23-25, 33), so their child can "get my mommy back" (page 25).
What conclusions should APA members draw from this? Is it any wonder that women psychiatrists are overrepresented in APA lapsed memberships or that many women view APA as irrelevant to their lives?
Donna E. Stewart, M.D.
Toronto, Ontario
Dr. Stewart is a member of APA's Committee on Women.