This name was invented by my
big sister when she was in medical school in Richmond, Virginia. (Wait, I know these seem like
extraneous facts, but they all have a
bearing on the phrase - bear with me.)
She was in here second year, and was recruited to join an organization called Women in Medicine. This group provided support for female students, recruited new ones, and also went out into local schools and performed dogoodery, such as teaching local sex ed classes.
Being the good yank that she is, she joined up. Found out, relatively quickly that Richmond in all its glory, ain't upstate New York, where we'd misspent our youths.
The typical response of the charming southern belles she was taking classes with was something along the lines of (and I won't subject you to my bad southern dialect here) "well, I couldn't join a group like THAT. People might think I was some kind of FEMINIST or something."
.......
Now, I know a woman of an earlier generation who went to medical school. There were 3 women in her class, out of probably 200. I've seen her yearbook - the most interesting page was a shot of a bunch of the male students, dressed up in drag, on stage performing for some talent night. If you were one of three women struggling through med school, how do you think that might feel? She was a psychiatrist in Manhattan. When she moved to Kentucky, she was blocked from getting licensed in the state by endless requests for more paperwork from the local medical board. She finally gave up, and worked helping the local eldery folk with their taxes, and living off of stock dividends. Independently wealthy, but only at a poverty level.
.......
Do these women really have a clue about what they're saying? Ever heard of suffragism? Did you know you have the right to vote? How about the right to legal abortion? Something vaguely resembling equal pay? How the hell do you think you got into medical school in the first place, if not for a couple of generations of heartbreakingly difficult work by, you got it, feminists?
My sister eventually found the women who had more brains, and had a great year with the group. But she alway said she felt like she might as well have been asking them to join a group called "lesbo nympho killer whores" for the reaction that she got.
And thus, a t-shirt was born. My sister, never one to keep her opinions to herself, printed up a few of them. "lesbo nympho killer whore" on the front. 'Women in Medicine' on the back. Few people get the joke, so we don't wear them very often, but I still have mine. It reminds me of how far we've come, and how far we have yet to go.