Walking Out on the Boys [Paperback]

Frances K. Conley M.D. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 4, 1999

In May 1991, Frances K. Conley, the first female tenured professor of neurosurgery in the country, made headline news when she resigned from Stanford University to protest the medical school’s unabashed gender discrimination. In this controversial, forthright memoir, Conley portrays the world of academic medicine in which women are still considered inferior; she also explains why, as a consequence, the research and treatment of women’s health problems lag far behind those of men. In assessing why women’s careers and psyches are suffering, Conley provides a first-person look into what it is like to be an accomplished woman within this restrictive medical world, offering invaluable advice to patients and future doctors alike.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Here's Frances Conley's description of her medical school anatomy class: "[W]e would become accustomed and oblivious to the fact that little bits of dead flesh would cling to our clothing and our shoes, and entangle in our hair, traveling with us to other classes or even home, as if the dead were making a futile attempt to retain a tenuous tie to the living." Just as she felt overcome by the dead in that class, her neurosurgery career was fraught with sexism and harassment--from her admission as one of just 12 women (out of 60) in her medical school class in 1961 to her decision to resign from Stanford University's School of Medicine 30 years later. Conley has done every patient--and every female doctor--a sincere favor with this memoir of the games that are played within the academic and medical realms. The book has a bad aftertaste, however, because Conley's message is not one of empowerment. She was compelled to resign from her position when the university appointed Dr. Gerald Silverberg as acting chairman of the department. He was later demoted after a sexual harassment investigation and Conley returned to Stanford life, but, as she says, "The academic community has shown little inclination to change 'business as usual.'" Conley, now 57, gives a well-written play-by-play of years of sexual shenanigans and legal proceedings, but offers little in the way of advice for women who find themselves at the receiving end of harassment. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The country's first tenured female neurosurgeon, Conley explains that gender discrimination prompted her dramatic resignation from Stanford.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (June 4, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374525951
• ISBN-13: 978-0374525958
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #284,040 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Realistic portrayal of women in professional schools, May 17, 1998

By 

[e-mail] Cathy Goodwin (Philadelphia, PA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Walking Out on the Boys (Hardcover)

Reviewers criticize Conley for not offering solutions and focusing too much on academic politics. They miss the point.

Harassment happens through politics -- dull but deadly. And there *are* no solutions. Conley shows us that even national press coverage can't make a dent in a determined university protected by a prestigious reputation (or -- as she doesn't say -- a winning sports team).

My own experience suggests that many of Conley's criticisms of Stanford Medical School apply to other universities and to other professional schools. (How many women are teaching at your favorite business school?)  Nor are women the only targets. Those who attack women are also likely to display hostility towards colleagues, students and clients who are ethnic minorities, gay/lesbian, disabled, or even childless by choice.  The reality is that universities lag behind other institutions, including blue-collar and military, when it comes to integrating women into their faculties.

In her new book, Fighting Fire, Caroline Paul (a San Francisco fire fighter) shares with Conley the awareness that harassment can be subtle rather than violent. Yet, unlike Stanford Medical School, the SFFD shows progress. After a few years, a male colleague apologizes voluntarily for earlier hostility, admitting he's grown and changed since more women have arrived. Carol Ann Barkalow's book, In the Men's House, shows that West Point began making similar progress twenty years ago. Speaking about those expelled for harassment, a male cadet says, "We don't want those jerks in the army."

These attitude shifts seem foreign to Conley's world -- and, I suspect, to many academic settings. Yet universities -- even private ones -- also receive considerable state and federal funds. What they lack is pressure to change the status quo. Change will come when we start asking our legislators why our taxes are paying universities to hire human resource staff to write policies they never intend to enforce, while also paying! lawyers to defend those who harass and intimidate their colleagues.

Those who suggest women should defend themselves with lawsuits and clever repartee also miss the point. Discrimination and harassment harm not just a specific target, but the social fabric of the organization, and eventually all those whose lives are touched by the organization.

And that, I think, is Conley's lesson: we should *all* be concerned. It bothers me to think that a doctor who's just groped a nurse will cut into a brain five minutes later. It bothers me that a psychiatrist retains the Stanford imprimatur while he harasses his colleagues. It bothers me that a doctor who insults his female colleagues will make life-or-death decisions about his female patients. And, in general, it bothers me that our taxes support the ivy walls that create the glass ceiling in workplaces all over the world.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, compelling reading on a continuing problem, May 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Walking Out on the Boys (Paperback)

Frances Conley offers a compelling indictment of gender discrimination at Stanford Medical School, past and present, focussing on her own recent experience. I started this book at midnight and could not put it down until finishing it at 4 a.m. Conley provides case after case of medical school professors given virtually absolute and unchecked power over their subordinates and their subordinates' careers, abusing that power, and the medical school administration covering up that abuse. While she never addresses the issues of solidarity in the face of sexual harassment, her cases all indicate that when one woman protests, she loses, and only a pattern of abuse reported by multiple women leads to any punishment of the harassers at all. Conley was fortunate and grateful that 37 others came forward to support her claim that Gerald Silverberg engaged in inappropriate sexual contact and other activities counterindicating his capability for leadership. I'll be passing this book onto many women who have had the choice to be treated at Stanford Hospital and may well now rethink that choice.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Scenerio Sadly Recognized, May 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Walking Out on the Boys (Hardcover)

Sadly, any woman who's achieved a doctorate (& not just in medicine) will relate wholeheartedly to this book. I greatly admire Dr. Conley's unbelievable courage in standing up to the Boys' Club & trying to make things better for women in academia. Hopefully this book will encourage ALL women to stand up to the misogyny & be heard.