Androphobia, Demasculinization, and Professional Conflicts:The Herstories of the Physical Therapy Profession Deconstructed

Abstract

Research on the beginning of the physical therapy profession in different countries often identifies it as a traditional female occupation. Its original semiprofessional character is also pointed out. It lacked professional attributes with masculine connotations, such as a high degree of autonomy and a unique scientific body of knowledge. But on all accounts this understanding is wrong. Originally the profession was an occupation for men only, who were very professionally independent and in charge of a state-sanctioned science of their own. Yet no modern physical therapists know about this, and neither do scholars studying the profession's origin. Why is that? The aim of this article is to highlight the gender mechanisms shaping a discourse strong enough to change our historical consciousness, in this case preventing us from seeing the masculine context out of which the physical therapy profession grew. The analysis explaining the phenomenon centers on two gender-altering and conflict-laden processes, one that was homosocial (men against men) and one that was heterosocial (women against men). Common to both was that they were ultimately powered by a fear of masculinity, here conceptualized as androphobia. Simplified the physical therapy profession came to be perceived as too masculine, and due to this its excess of masculinity was actively eliminated from the profession even in physical form (read: males). The profession was demasculinized and the same happened to its old history, which made the latter unwanted and finally obscured behind new herstories.