The New York State Bar Association was actually planning — really — to put on a panel discussion entitled Their point of View: Tips from the Other Side, described as follows: “A distinguished panel of gentleman will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of women.”
Yes, you've come a long way, baby.
(Howls of protest, threat of boycott, inspired cosmetic — but it seems not substantive —changes.)
Well, law is an EXTREMELY male dominated and chauvanistic field FULL of old school men who treat women with mere pretence of equality. It’s not like that in Law Schools, and it’s not like that in a lot of firms, but in some, I think you’d be shocked. I worked in a firm once where one of the older partners insisted (openly) that any women hired had to pass the beauty test with him first. Seriously. Really. I’ve known judges that you KNEW were secretely either undressing the female attornies in their heads, or not really taking them as seriously as the man opposing them. It was all but stated. (but if you think it’s easy to go after a judge on ethical grounds as speculative as that – well it ain’t gonna happen.) And if you think firms that become aware of such things don’t take advantage of it…. (I’ve heard lawyers talk happily about having particular female attorneys oppose them because they didn’t respond well to aggressive tactics so they were kept off balance. I’ve WATCHED male attorneys push the buttons of female attornies in trial.) This is the real world. Happily, this sort of behavior is disappearing, but it’s nowhere near gone.
Look, law schools might be half and half now, but they haven’t been for all that long and law is chock full of lawyers who started when the field was almost entirely men. That’s just reality, whether we like it or not. Whatever the rediculous details of this particular symposium, it is FACT that the law needs to recognize that there are a lot of lawyers who will not treat women like you will, and who are smart enough to not get sued over it. Some form of education needs to happen on both sides to this problem, especially to the 20-30 years olds who have no idea that this still exists in the modern world.
Well, sure, but then the appropriate panel would be “Men: How to bring them into the late 20th Century”.
Maybe so, but you can’t just waive a magic wand and change how people think. Leftists have been proving that this doesn’t work for over 100 years now.
Ideally, the old kinks will work their way out of the legal system over time and with the increasing peer pressure of the newest lawyers. But for now, if you are a women lawyer, you are also a fool if you think your civil rights and the modern sense of feminine equality are going to just naturally keep things even for you. You better be ready to cope with the many situations you could encounter in the real world.
I don’t know if that’s what this symposium was really intending or not, but it’s a realistic idea – not some laughable throw-back to 1960 that must be stopped at all costs.