History of Women in Dentistry

Throughout history, women were systematically denied access to health education due to entrenched societal beliefs, economic gatekeeping, and fears of shifting gender dynamics. Medicine and dentistry were traditionally seen as male-dominated fields, with women expected to remain in domestic roles, and institutions reinforced their exclusion through religious, cultural, and academic barriers. Resistance to female dental practice and education persisted well into the 19th and 20th centuries, with pioneers like Josephine Serre, Lucy Hobbs Taylor, and Ida Gray and many others facing skepticism and hostility. The present paper makes a major sweep across two thousand years to describe the struggle to achieve gender parity. Significant progress has been made-women now constitute nearly 40% of licensed dentists in the U.S., projected to reach 49.4% in the next 15 years, and across Europe, their representation continues to grow, particularly in Germany and the EU/EEA, where they make up nearly half of the dental workforce.