I put these ‘Smoking Cat Wedges’ by London-based luxury accessories designer Charlotte Olympia on the table in response to the NYTimes article Sexism Charges Divide Surgeons’ Group. Our comment — which is now rated in the top 5 — tries to bridge the fault line that women professionals walk when dealing with stereotypes, humor and outright discrimination from their male peers.

There is an element of stupidity on the part of Dr Lazar J Greenfield, an emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Michigan School of Medicine and president-elect of the American College of Surgeons, praising the mood-enhancing effects of semen on women.

In his Valentine’s Day editorial for the American College of Surgeons, with 10 percent women members, Dr Greenfield referenced research we’ve called out regularly and include in our list of 32 reasons why sex is good for you.

It begins with a reference to the mating behaviors of fruit flies, then goes on to discuss studies on the menstrual cycles of heterosexual and lesbian women who live together. Citing the research of evolutionary psychologists at the State University of New York, it describes how female college students who had been exposed to semen were less depressed than their peers who had not, concluding: “So there’s a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there’s a better gift for that day than chocolates.”

The women members of the American College of Surgeons are resigning, Dr Greenfield is out as editor of the organization’s journal and his future as the next president of the organization is in limbo. All copies of the journal were withdrawn, including the digital copy of the article, which exists anyway in cyberspace.  Checking the journal website, I read that there are plans to put the journal back in circulation.

Dr. Greenfield has not issued a formal statement and could not be reached for comment, but in an e-mail to his colleagues in response to the criticism, he wrote that his editorial “was considered by the Women in Surgery Committee and the Association of Women Surgeons as demeaning to women. Despite my apologies, they brought the issue to the Board of Regents.”

As all the comments and women interviewed for the Pauline W. Chen’s article remind us, there is major discrimination in the field of surgery, a notoriously macho wing of medicine. In no way should the women’s life experiences dealing with the medical establishment be dismissed, nor their demands that Dr Greenfield’s words be censured go unheard.

Many American Women Have ‘Had It’

Many women have reached the point of having ‘had it’, dealing with men and sexism. The Republican War on Women has us all in knots, as we watch mostly American men trying to turn back the clock on women’s progress in America. Make no mistake: this IS the Republican agenda.