[Professional prestige and gender--clinical scientific staff in Copenhagen as an example]

At the clinical medical departments of The University of Copenhagen only 5% of the clinical professors and 18% of the associate professors were women in 1995. Among the other categories of the scientific staff, e.g. assistant professors, 34% were women. There was also an uneven distribution of women among the specialties, ranging from 0% women on the scientific staff of the ear, nose and throat specialty to 75% in geriatrics. Based on a ranking scale for the medical specialties constructed by Album (9), the study shows that the percentage of women within a specialty is negatively correlated to the prestige of the specialty. On Album's scale ranging from 1 (highest) to 22 (lowest) the specialties of the female professors had a mean ranking of 18.5 compared to 12.6 for the male professors. The mean ranking for the associate professors was 15.0 for the women compared to 8.8 for the men.