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This thesis investigates how gynaecology was established as a medical speciality in Sweden in the 1860s and onwards. Gender, power, professionalisation and the production of scientific knowledge are central themes. While previous research has shown that gynaecology as a discipline depends upon notions of Woman as radically different from Man, I show how this was manifested within Swedish gynaecology, an initially all male environment. Of special interest is institutionalisation, early career-paths and the development of therapy methods and theory. I argue that gynaecology reproduced and contributed to notions of sex-difference and a gender complementary way of thinking.

While gynaecology was formed as a surgically interventionist speciality with strong manly connotations, an education reform aiming at opening higher education to women was simultaneously discussed and eventually carried out during the 1860s and 70s. The advocates of this reform portrayed women as especially fit for becoming teachers and physicians, particularly treating women and children. Thus, two opposing gendered professional ideals operated. By focusing an elite group of early women physicians, I outline how the gynaecological construction of womanliness related to women physicians and how women physicians engaged with this notion: what strategies they used to enter a profession as manly as gynaecology had become; and how women gynaecologists engaged with their men colleagues’ therapeutic methods and views on patients and women.