Even with medical school classes now roughly half and half men and women, women still get the short straw. Women continue to enter less prestigious specialties like pediatrics, internal medicine, and psychiatry while men predominate in surgery. The new executive director of the AMA holds a permanent position, has a military background, and is a man. He actually wields the real power at the AMA, not the President who is a figurehead. I do not know what it will take for women to obtain equal power and prestige with men in medicine.
Women have impediments to career advancement such as childbirth, child-rearing, and housework.
Women, as a whole, are not as aggressive as men. Women generally do not have access to the predominately male networks at the major medical clinics, universities, and government organizations. Women lack role models and mentors. Using myself as an example, I was the only female in the Thoracic Department at the Mayo Clinic between 1974 and 1976. There were about twelve other male fellows in training and twenty-five consultants.