<p>The following are some exerpts from an article by Cathy Wright, who is a founding partner of a law firm and a professor. The article was published in The Complete Lawyer.</p>
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What women really want is a level playing field. The problem lies in agreeing on how to accomplish that because, in general, men and women dont see the same playing field the same way. To further complicate matters, they often arent even playing the same game. And neither gender sees these realities, leading to a lot of missed cues. (One caveat: not all men or all women are alike, and issues of concern to one gender concern the other as well, but often with differences in priority and style.) </p>
<p>Why is this? Well, guys, its your turf. My women-owned business is the subject of a lot of (mostly) good-natured ribbing from male colleagues. There is no question that our office is organized differently and has a very distinct feel from what most businessmen are accustomed to. Even though we work regularly and well with many men, they often find these differences palpable. And so it is for women in most corporate business environments. </p>
<p>If you doubt what I am saying, browse through the business section in your local mega bookstore or on Amazon.com . You will quickly find dozens of books, hundreds of magazine articles, and even entire magazines devoted to the subject of advising women on how to successfully negotiate the world of men and business. I am still waiting for just one book devoted to advising men on how to be successful in the world of women and business.
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What difference does all this make? Let me go back a ways. When I started college in 1967, I sat through freshman orientation and filled out the Strong Vocational Interest Inventory. The assessment advised me that I had a very promising career as a high school teacher or a librarian, both worthy occupations. However, I looked in vain for the career choice attorney, already my aspiration, or even newspaper writer or marine biologist, my backup choices. Those career choices appeared on the boys inventory, not the girls. I complained to the testing company. I am happy to report that I was rewarded seven years later, when as a third year law student, I was asked to repeat the Inventory to norm attorney as a career choice for women. My point is that the structure of the test didnt allow for girls to have the same career choices, and most students didnt even realize there was a difference to complain about.
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Heres another vignette that captures some of the sense of what its like to be a woman in a predominantly male corporate organization. When I began practice, in 1976, one of the senior litigation partners called me in his office and said, Were willing to give you a chance to be a litigator, but Ive got to tell you, I dont think women are tough enough to be litigators. So I spent several months being as tough as my 54 and 115 pounds could muster. Then he called me in his office and announced that he didnt think I was going to work out as a litigator. Why? I asked. Because juries just arent going to like a tough woman, he replied.</p>
<p>Happily, that didnt turn out to be the case, and during more than 20 years of successful trial practice, I mentored many young lawyers, many of them male. One day I went into the office of one of my favorite young partners to discuss a conflict that required us to find separate counsel for a bank officer. As was my practice, I identified three fine trial lawyers to recommend. Unusually, in that case, they all happened to be women. My young colleague looked at me and asked, Well, shouldnt we include a male lawyer? Do you think hes going to accept a woman to represent him? We both stood in stunned silence for a moment, and then he had the grace to say, Oh my gosh! Sorry!
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As we know from You Just Dont Understand, Deborah Tannens seminal book on gender differences in language styles, men and women use the same lexicon, but the words dont always mean the same things. For example, women often use the interrogative voice, ending declarative sentences with a rising voice and a question mark. As all husbands know, Honey, would you please take out the garbage? is not a request. Women also temper speech with modifiers like, Well, it seems to me perhaps
or Dont you think that
Among women, this language maintains the egalitarian, collaborative structure natural to most women. However, in the business world, men instinctively hear this language structure as uncertain and lacking power. </p>
<p>When we make assumptions about language without considering these gender differences, we can run into trouble. When I was involved in a hotly contested effort to be appointed to the federal bench, for example, I called a powerful male lawyer whose support I needed only to hear him extol my experience and qualifications. I hung up and happily called a male colleague to report the glowing comments. My colleague said, Cathy, what did he say he would do? In that moment, I realized that mens accolades dont necessarily add up to the support a woman thought they implied.
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The structure of an organization dictates how its members relate to each other. Men are acutely conscious of the hierarchy and what impacts it. They know everyones position and plan many of their interactions based on whether they will move up or down the organizational escalator. Women, on the other hand, tend to be concerned with preserving relationships. Hierarchy does not support connection, at least not in the female world. In addition, standing out is not encouraged. </p>
<p>Two examples: a highly placed corporate officer was criticized by her male colleagues for not building professional relationships. She was stunned. She felt as if she spent a great deal of her time building relationshipsshe knew the date of everyones birthday and constantly asked about colleagues children. Her mistake was in thinking that men considered what she was doing relationship building. To them, there is a stronger difference between professional and personal relationships.
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Its no secret that women bear the major responsibility for childrearing and, even today, homemaking. In fact, we bear the responsibility for maintaining the social fabric that is largely invisible to most men. Think about the stereotype of Thanksgiving Dinner: she issues invitations, remembers who isnt speaking to whom, balances salads with desserts, and cleans up the whole mess. The guys ask when and where to show up, eat, and watch football. </p>
<p>Studies establish that the average woman tends to spend about 20 hours a week, or about three hours a day (which is 2-3 times more than her male counterpart) on domestic responsibilities in addition to her outside employment. For lawyers, add that to a 75-hour work week. And its not just the time all this takes, its the head space. </p>
<p>Some men (and more than a few women) respond that these issues are the result of life choices. Families with an at-home partner add that they are making the financial sacrifice to have someone manage the home front, so they feel working women have no right to have their life choices subsidized by business. </p>
<p>I dont think this is an either/or proposition; one reality doesnt cancel the other. Rather, we need to acknowledge that the structure of our society forces women lawyers to assume burdens and make choices that most of their male counterparts dont share. Women-owned business is the fastest growing segment of the US economy, and as hard as it is to start a business, these businesses are succeeding equally with businesses started by men. Many observers believe that this trend reflects the impulsion of women to set up organizations that respect the realities of their lives. These new businesses require women to work hard, maybe even harder, than they do in the corporate world, and yet they succeed. Freed of the necessity to accommodate to structures that sometimes feel unfriendly, women are finding ways to be successful. The lesson here is that women arent failing to accommodate to the corporate world anymore than the corporate world is failing to accommodate women. Clearly there are ways that work for women to work. </p>
<p>Both genders can take steps to ameliorate the current situation. We all need to become aware of how our unconscious differences create misunderstandings. Recognizing that this is a team issue rather than a womens issue is another essential component to leveraging a law firms investment in talented women employees. And while women lawyers need to take the responsibility for understanding the ground rules in the arena they have chosen, men need to develop a sense of appreciation, and perhaps some humility, about the home court advantages they may take for granted.
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<p>The following are some exerpts from an article in the Legal Times on December 13, 2007 about Lorelie Masters, a partner at Jenner & Block, and the NAWL study, which is cited in an earlier post on this thread. </p>
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Fighting the Subtler Side of Sexism</p>
<p>Maybe women are just as ambitious as men, says Lorelie Masters, so try asking them
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Lorelie Masters has her own theory about women’s lack of progress in the legal profession. It isn’t so much about telecommuting on Fridays or meeting draconian billable goals. The president of the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia has a different beef – with the subtle slights, hidden assumptions and veiled sexism that undercut many women in the corporate legal world. It’s what some have called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” </p>
<p>It’s far too easy for law firms today to shrug their shoulders when yet another woman departs, says Masters. They tell themselves: We tried, but there’s nothing we really could have done – she just wanted to spend more time with her family. That exculpates the firm and shifts the blame to the lawyer who’s leaving. </p>
<p>Not so fast, Masters interjects. Maybe, just maybe, those women wanted to stay. Maybe – despite assumptions – they’re just as ambitious as the men. But maybe they’re also sick of being pushed to the side, of not getting invited to the client meetings or offered the second chair in a big lawsuit. </p>
<p>Consider the partner preparing for a trial in 12 months. Does he add the female associate to the team? No, he strikes her from his list because she has a young family, and he figures committing the time down the road would be too hard. </p>
<p>That’s wrong, says Masters. “Ask first,” she advises. “Don’t make that determination” for the young woman.
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Here’s another example of the slights that, eventually, derail careers. A woman goes into a big meeting, says Masters, and she raises an idea. “The conversation continues. Suddenly, 10 minutes later, a guy raises that same idea,” and everyone loves it. </p>
<p>“It’s an accumulation of those kinds of incidents,” Masters says. “It’s the accumulated drip-drip-drip.”
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Maybe that’s because women aren’t expected to succeed like the men do. And so the firm sees the women as the ones heading for flex-time and the “mommy track,” not as future leaders to be encouraged. </p>
<p>Masters’ own experience sheds some light. The insurance litigator now with the Washington, D.C., office of Jenner & Block is trying like mad not to point a finger, but what she told her former firm, Anderson Kill & Olick – that she was “pursuing other opportunities” – was really only part of the story. The truth is less flattering to the firm. “I did feel that at my old firm, the business that came in the door went to the guys,” and that opportunities were not distributed evenly, she says.
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Part of this is the fault of women themselves, acknowledges Masters. Women have bought into the myth of meritocracy. It’s an instinct that served them well as students: Sit up front, take great notes and always do your homework. It translates badly, though, into a law office, where they still assume, “If I’m a good lawyer, that’s enough,” she says. </p>
<p>In fact, Masters says that she spent the first dozen or so years of law firm life thinking just that – if she did the best job possible, success would come to her. “And then in 1994, I realized that no one is going to know who Lorie Masters is unless I take charge.” And that meant, among other things, recognizing that the firm wasn’t necessarily going to give her career the same support it gave the men’s careers. Clients, as well, bear some blame: They weren’t demanding any kind of diversity in their law firms in the same way they do today.
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Obviously, law firms are giving some lip service to women’s issues. The NAWL survey reports that a whopping 95 percent of the large firms say they have set up “women’s initiatives” to help women develop their careers. Those initiatives include social networking, professional development and formal mentoring programs. </p>
<p>But the real question is whether these “initiatives” add up to anything or if they have about the same success as efforts to increase the number of African-American attorneys, which seem to have had little effect on overall retention. Most of these initiatives have been around for only a few years, so the argument could be made that this kind of cultural change takes time. But women have been patient for many years already. Masters says, “My fear is that if we don’t address this, it’s not really going to change.”
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