Senior medical professor faces storm over sexist mock-up of female brain
Feminist group condemns spoof image shown to uni students
A SENIOR academic has been condemned for showing students a mocked-up image of the female brain that included a string of sexist references.
Professor John Paul Leach, a consultant neurologist and head of undergraduate medicine at the University of Glasgow, shared the graphic online, with parts labelled the ‘sex initiator gland’, ‘driving skills’ and ‘realization of wants vs. needs’ shown as tiny dots.
Meanwhile, sections described as the ‘headache generator’ and ‘shoes’ are represented as much larger areas. Other big segments of the brain are labelled ‘talk, talk and more talk’ and ‘I told you so gland’.
It is believed the image was shown alongside a similar graphic of the male brain. The slide is said to have been removed from an online educational portal after complaints from students.
Professor Leach, a neurologist at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, and whose Twitter biography includes the line that he ‘thinks he’s funny’, is said to have shown the slide to students a year or so after being appointed to his academic role in 2016.
The university is now understood to be considering the findings of an internal inquiry believed to be related to allegations of ‘discriminatory’ behaviour towards female academics within the medical school.
Separately to this, Professor Leach is reported to be facing an internal university investigation related to gendered bullying and discrimination.
It is believed the image was uploaded to the student online portal Moodle, which led to complaints being made.
Professor Leach performed as a stand-up comedian in the 1990s while working as a research registrar and wrote and produced a Fringe show with actor Ford Kiernan, who starred in TV’s Still Game. The brain surgeon also previously presented a football show for radio station Scot FM. A spokeswoman for the Scottish Feminism Network said: ‘How can female students expect to be treated with respect by peers or lecturers if that is considered acceptable? This goes way past “banter” and could seriously undermine the confidence of female students. This is insidious and can cause serious long-term consequences.’ In January Morag Ross, QC, was appointed by the university to carry out a review of the institution’s approach to addressing gender-based violence, including harassment and harmful practices that are ‘committed disproportionately by men against women’.
Interviews have been carried out with staff and students and the report is due out in weeks.
A university spokesman said: ‘The University of Glasgow condemns discrimination of any kind and is committed to promoting equality and diversity across its campus.
‘The university treats all complaints seriously and investigates them appropriately.’ The spokesman added that it ‘could not comment on individual cases’.
Last night Professor Leach said he was unable to comment on the matter.
Dr Stuart Waiton, a sociology lecturer at Abertay University, said: ‘We need to be careful in cases like this that we differentiate between serious discrimination and what appears to be a not very clever attempt to be a funny guy.
‘Equating these things and seeing them both as having “serious longterm consequences” for female students risks undermining the seriousness of real discrimination and helps to portray all women as vulnerable, which helps nobody.’
A study last year by the British Medical Association showed nine in ten female doctors had experienced sexism at work, including unwanted physical contact. The BMA said the results of the research were appalling and the incidents recorded made for shocking reading.
The survey found 91 per cent of female doctors had experienced sexism at work and while just 4 per cent of men felt their clinical ability had been doubted or undervalued because of their gender, 70 per cent of women who responded said that it had.
More than 70 per cent of Scottish respondents said there was an issue of sexism within the NHS.
A male specialist medicine doctor told how, even though he often works with female consultants, there is ‘a tendency for other specialities to speak and defer to me rather than my consultant colleagues, despite knowing the grade of everyone in the conversation’.
‘Not very clever attempt to be a funny guy’