This vague put-upon feeling had been bothering me for some time, but only recently did I finally realize that I’m just one victim of a vast conspiracy. Chances are that any woman who has seen a doctor — a male doctor — in the past ten years has had the same kind of experience.

It started back in 1950, when I had to go to the clinic with a badly infected finger. I always get wounded in the annual battle with the rosebushes. After the precautionary tetanus shot, I wondered what to do for the finger.

“Oh, that,” the doctor said…