Customer Reviews

Walking Out on the Boys

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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.

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.

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.

Men groping women. Men coming on to women, and making incredible jackasses of themselves in the process. Men getting drunk and acting like barbarians. Men with one thing in mind. Men whose compulsion to talk about sex is so strong that they do it at highly inappropriate times in public. Men who think that pressuring women is their God-given right. If you think that what I just described is a high school football team on an overdose of steroids, you're wrong. These sexual antics weren't perpetrated by adolescents with testosterone bubbling out their ears, they were committed by male doctors at Stanford University. Not being stupid, these demigods put two and two together and realized that they could use their power to pressure women. One of these men made a fatal mistake, though: he pressured Dr. Frances Conley, a topnotch neurosurgeon and renowned researcher at Stanford. Bad move, fella. I suppose that guy never learned that if you're going to pick a fight, you don't provoke someone who can whack you back so hard you just might rethink whether it's wise to be a bully.

As publicity spread about Dr. Conley's fight, more and more women came forward to reveal their stories. This was certainly an eye-opening book. Before reading it, I'd never given much thought about the sexual harassment of women in medicine and allied healthcare fields. Perhaps we're more civilized here in Michigan, because I've never seen or heard of any such hanky-panky. Well, let me revise that last statement: I have witnessed a lot of sexual inducement, but what I saw was women chasing men not the other way around. But everyone knows that those California folks are trendsetters.

Dr. Conley never envisioned herself as a trendsetter, though. For years, she passively participated in the abuse until a concatenation of events convinced her that it was time to draw a line in the sand. To make a long story short, the men didn't believe she'd put up much of a fight, but she did, and they lost. Big time.

(...) Perhaps the most chilling message in this book is that some men in positions of power are willing to use that power to stifle the careers of women. So what is an attractive woman to assume? That if she goes into medicine her pulchritude will serve as a magnet for sexual harassment? Perhaps this abuse is, unbeknownst to me, more pervasive than I think. I suppose because most of my friends are women, I can't understand men who view women as being somehow inferior. However, you shouldn't necessarily construe from that statement that I think women physicians are as competent, on average, as male physicians. There's no doubt that some are, and there's no doubt that Dr. Conley is a superior physician, not just competent. (...) My only major criticism of the book is that it is too focused upon abuse of women by men. Since the core of this book is hinged upon some of the depredations that ensue when power is abused, I think she could have achieved a more balanced perspective by pointing out that powerful people often use their power against men, too  not just women. I've seen male docs fight one another with such a vehemence that it made the stories in Dr. Conley's book seem as pleasant as afternoon tea and cookies with a neighbor. Consequently, while I don't intend to trivialize the unfortunate reality of the abuse Dr. Conley documents, it's important to keep in mind that this abuse is but one aspect of a much larger problem. In defense of Dr. Conley, broadening the scope of this book to include other aspects of hospital politics would have diluted the message she wished to inculcate, and it would have made for a very unwieldy book. With that in mind, I suppose I'm on shaky ground by wishing that her book had a wider focus. Her book, her demeanor, her dedication, her resolve, and her competence are commendable. Dr. Conley is a great doctor and I am happy to have met her, however indirectly, by reading this book.

Review by Kevin Pezzi, M.D.

Frances Conley is a friend and mentor that has endured much more sacrifice and torture in the workplace than I could ever imagine. She tells about the support system she developed to survive, commradery in the OR with the nurses, orderlies and "less threatening" staff. She remains an inspiration and the book an incredible catharsis of her experiences. Although it might not appeal to everyone, certainly every woman who aspires to succeed in a male dominated profession should read it. Men in positions of power (imagined or real) should also read it to learn how to nuture and not stifle the creative spirit of their female collegues.

As a minority faculty in the academics Frances Conley's book vividly portrays the reality of the ivory tower that, though pretentiously progressive in ideas, is way behind the iota of gender equality that exists outside the academe. I, sometimes, feel I am living in the medieval period when entering the academe.

When I first came across this book I thought this must have been written in the seventies and I could share it with my students as a historical autobiography of sexism in an academic institution. I was horrified to find that it was written in the nineties about one of the most prestigious institution in California.

I have always felt alone, alienated in the academe and of course disconnected from other women who were struggling too much to bother with the problems of their women peers. This book validated my experience and helped me understand where my alienation was coming from.

I wish this book could be a standard read for all freshman students in all universities. Only when women who appear to be in power tell their stories of powerlessness and abuse can we act collectively to stop the misogyny that exists among our men and more particularly among our elite men.

Criticisms alone rarely carry any weight or provide solutions to unsolved issues... Dr. Conley merely points out the working conditions for women in the academic arena at Stanford. I'm very much in awe of Dr. Conely's courage for writing such a book; working conditions as described by Dr. Conley not only exist at Stanford but also everywhere else. The solutions rest in the hands of those who wish to change and not just Dr. Conley alone.

Dr. Conley's story is achingly familiar to those of us who are still pioneering and persevering in male dominated hierarchies. Her experience is not limited to medicine. It mirrors my experience in corporate America. There are no easy solutions and she is to be commended for not offering platitudes or inventing a happy ending when there is none in sight. It offers a blueprint for what to expect in dealing with descrimination which is very helpful. The only recourse we seem to have at this point is to continue to break the silence, one voice at a time, and her's is eloquent. She held management's feet to the fire. Maybe if enough of them get scorched, they'll learn to take responsibility for their behavior. Meantime, we will continue to look them squarely in the eyes and persist, 'what are you going to do about this?'

As a former employee of Stanford Department of Neurosurgery, I stand and applaud Dr. Frances Conley. Her book depicts what it is like to work with a group of men, literally boys, who refuse to behave. Dr. Conley's book validates that I was not living a nightmare at Stanford that this behavior by surgeons and adminstrators is common. I have always been in awe of Dr. Conley, reading her story makes me realize I was often in the company of a unique and courageous woman.

I read straight through this book last night. It's a sort of memoir by Frances Conley, a tenured professor of neurosurgery at Stanford who resigned in the early 90's because of a hostile work environment and entrenched sexism in academic medicine. It's a fascinating read not only because of her experiences but also the twists and turns in academic politics. By many measures and by her own admission, Conley had great success and luck in her career. She had a very successful marriage and home life. Coming from an academically successful and high achieving family, she attended some of the best schools, obtained excellent surgical training, had success in her lab research and in her clinical cases, and was beginning to develop strong recognition in the wider, international research and medical community. However, she ran up against problems of entrenched sexism and in surgery and medicine that she decided she could no longer tolerate, and resigned in protest over activities in her own academic department. By her own description, she was somewhat swept up into a much larger set of issues on sexism in sexual harassment in medicine at the time, and became a role model, spokesperson, and leader for the rights of women in healthcare.

Again, a very interesting story even for just the details of the political intrigues and legal issues in the hierarchical academic-medical-industrial complex.