I never expected to use the word “cult” to describe a group of women physicians. Yet that’s the only word I can find as I try to make sense of what I’ve been witnessing.
When I joined a Facebook group for women in medicine, I thought I had found a haven. It was supposed to be a place for support and encouragement – a community where we could celebrate each other’s successes, share struggles, and find support in a profession that often leaves us isolated. And at first, that’s what it was. The conversations felt uplifting. The camaraderie was real.
But then, slowly, the tone shifted. I noticed that the support wasn’t universal. It wasn’t enough to be a woman physician; you also had to agree with the moderators. Stray too far from the group’s accepted worldview, and you weren’t just questioned. You were silenced.
The clearest example hit me like a jolt. After George Floyd’s death, the group filled with tributes, grief, and calls for justice. Posts poured in, and each was met with encouragement and heartfelt responses. I understood that; it made sense that people wanted to come together around such a seismic event. But then came something else: few posts and comments in support of Charlie Kirk. It didn’t last long. The moderators deleted it and quickly announced that posts supporting Kirk would not be tolerated. Their language was blunt. Unapologetic. Final.
Meanwhile, criticisms of Kirk were not only permitted, they thrived. Posts mocking him, tearing apart his work, questioning his motives remained visible, even celebrated. The contrast couldn’t have been starker.
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I remember staring at the screen, stunned. It wasn’t just that certain opinions were unpopular; it was that they were forbidden. Meanwhile, only one side of the conversation was allowed oxygen. And in the silence that followed, something even more unsettling happened: compliance.
Members adapted quickly. When a moderator laid down the line, everyone seemed to fall in place. Comment threads filled with agreement. New posts echoed the same message. The boundaries of “acceptable” thought grew tighter, and those who strayed too close to the edges were either corrected, ignored, or erased altogether.
That’s when the group began to feel less like a community and more like a cult. Not in the stereotypical sense of robes and chanting, but in the deeper, more insidious sense: a place where belonging requires conformity, where approval becomes the currency, and where dissent is treated as betrayal.
The irony is almost unbearable. This group was meant to be uplifting. Instead, it reproduces the same dynamics of exclusion and hierarchy that women in medicine have been fighting against for decades. A small number of voices dictate the conversation, and everyone else is expected to follow. The only difference is that this time, the enforcers are not hospital administrators or old boys’ networks—they’re our peers.
I don’t think most of the women in this group even realize what’s happening. Some are swept up in the current; others, like me, stay silent out of self-preservation. Speaking up risks more than a scolding. In medicine, where reputations matter and word spreads quickly, the fear of being labeled or ostracized is real. The safer choice is to keep quiet, click “like” on the right posts, and move along.
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But silence comes at a cost. Every time we withhold our true thoughts, we reinforce the illusion that everyone thinks the same way. And the more that illusion grows, the more powerful the groupthink becomes. Soon, the lines between sincere belief and social survival blur. That’s how brainwashing works. Not through overt coercion, but through the slow erosion of dissent until only one truth remains.
I’ve seen colleagues (intelligent, independent women) begin to echo the group’s rhetoric almost word for word. At times, it feels like watching people get pulled deeper into quicksand, smiling as they sink. What began as support has mutated into something dangerous: conformity disguised as unity.
I can’t sit with that quietly anymore. That’s why I’m speaking up now, though I know it has to be anonymously. My voice isn’t particularly special, but it is mine, and I’m not willing to let a Facebook group take it from me. I refuse to accept the idea that empowerment means obedience, that solidarity requires uniformity, or that women physicians can only be valued if they speak with one voice.
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Because the truth is this: real acceptance means room for disagreement. It means we can support each other as whole, complex people, not as carbon copies of a party line. It means we can celebrate one another’s victories even if we don’t vote the same way, worship the same way, or interpret the world the same way.
The group I’m describing has lost sight of that. And unless something changes, it risks becoming not a community, but a cage. I don’t want that for myself, and I certainly don’t want it for the brilliant, resilient women physicians who deserve more than to be told what to think.
So consider this my quiet wake-up call to anyone who’s been nodding along in discomfort, anyone who’s felt the unease I’ve felt. You’re not alone. You don’t have to surrender your individuality to belong. And if this group cannot hold space for difference, then maybe it’s time to build something better; something that values freedom of thought as much as it does freedom from the barriers we face in medicine.
Because women in this profession don’t need another cult. What we need (what we’ve always needed) is a community where we can be ourselves. All of ourselves. Even when we disagree.
In medicine, where reputations matter and word spreads quickly, the fear of being labeled or ostracized is real. The safer choice is to keep quiet, click “like” on the right posts, and move along.
