Bravo’s “Married To Medicine” premiered last night after “Real Housewives of Atlanta” and the show already has tongues wagging. The latest show in the network’s popular wives series, the program features women doctors, doctors’ wives and medical sales associates all behaving badly. The first episode features a blowout between doctors wives’ Quad and Toya in which Kari, incidentally the only white castmate reveals she was “scared.” Quad’s behavior is attributed to her Memphis upbringing by the other castmates but viewers worry that the fighting and back-stabbing will reflect on black women doctors and wives in general.
To that end, a few Howard University medical students have created a petition against the show, writing:
Black female physicians only compose 1% of the American workforce of physicians. Due to our small numbers, the depiction of Black female doctors in media, on any scale, highly affects the public’s view on the character of all future and current African American female doctors. Bravo’s “Married to Medicine” not only exploits the 6 lives of its Black female cast members, but, through its advertisements and commercials, heavily associates Black females in medicine with materialism, “cat fights”, and unprofessionalism.
The petition also brings to light how negative depictions of black women in medicine could adversely impact job opportunities for doctors of color:
Additionally, as residency positions are becoming increasingly more competitive (particularly for Black women) and contingent upon social behavior of graduating medical students, this depiction will only hinder black female physicians from attaining competitive residencies.
Even viewers who aren’t interested in the medical field were turned off by the castmates bickering and turning their noses up at each other, lamenting how their behavior reflects on black women as well as the city of Atlanta.
