blog 39

Of course there needs to be several changes in the profession of law to help women become the 'ideal worker' since the ideal worker is severely out dated in today’s work environment and society. English's reworking of ideals and issues brings women more to date in today’s work environment. Alternative work schedules allow female lawyers to have a family but not at such a large expense of their careers. It helps them keep the hold in their firms that they worked so bitterly for in the first place. Alternative schedules, more access to the firm’s partners and higher ranked attorneys while being able to socialize within the firm would make women’s opportunities better and more frequent. Also women are afraid to take maternity leave and so are fathers paternity leave is frowned upon, we need to change or at least tweak the mindset that balancing life is a bad decision. Work in America seems to be at the forefront of priorities when in most countries its second, that being said a lot of countries have a fair more populated work environment, women wise. Another main reason women cannot seem to gain access to partners is because most are men. Men tend to congregate with other men, and women have a hard time breaking through the barrier. This is because they do not have access to the partners through company functions and meetings that are dominated by males. As a few lawyers pointed out many women’s actions seem to make other older partners think they are not committed, children aside women tend to look at different aspects of an argument and when there is an acknowledgment of the other side they are seem as impressionable. Women’s ways of dealing with people, time, arguments, and money vary greatly from their male counter parts and since it is a new way of doing things it is frowned upon and when you are frowned upon or at least your actions are you aren’t usually promoted.

One of these things is not like the other.

Blog 38

Judge of the supreme court of justice, appointed by a republican. Arizona senate leader and senator. Arizona assistant attorney general. This is an impressive resume for anyone, but let’s figure in that she is a female and she was the first female to be appointed onto the supreme court of justice, lets also figure in that she was appointed by republican Ronald Reagan and that was in the 80's when females were still struggling to get hired in law firms. O’Connor paved the way for women, and what is so extra ordinary was not only did she do it she did it in a south west state being a republican and she pretty well liked in general. The likable image is almost impossible for females in politics and law because we are not used to hearing a woman’s opinion. She also was a female that was pro choice although she personally against it, the fact that many of her views where liberal and she was a female who was still respected by her peers and stood strongly for what she believed in put a foot hold in law for women. Not only did she serve and was held in high regard while she was in office but she is still revered and has been given the Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. Her vote, which was never accounted for because of her liberal or conservative views helped push many acts into law and helped keep reproductive rights for women as well as seal George W. Bush's presidency when she stopped the ruling for recounts. She has stood up for women's rights, as well as gay rights and the rights of minorities while holding a more conservative outlook on other areas. She has championed human rights while still holding true to her own beliefs making her the swing vote several times. She made herself indispensible to the court as well as to the history books by changing how Americans reacted to the law and how the law treated its citizens, especially those with very few rights originally.

Blog 37

What I find most prevalent with women in the profession of law is that each one has to make her own dent and fight her own battles. One women's success is not shared with others but one woman’s failures are shared with all. The negatives are always looming around the corner and they will always shine like a neon light affecting thousands of females within the same profession. The American Bar Association has several reports finding discrimination in various stages against female lawyers. While some progress has changed the problems females in law face it has been passive aggressive tactics to help them. Time, is not an option since that is how we have been handling sexism in the work place and it has shown unsatisfying results. I do think time will only help females since the women entering law schools keeps jumping up statistically and women are making up more of the percentage of co eds. Women are becoming more prominent in the work place despite little effort to improve their working lives by corporations, more women are coming back to work because of the economy but also more women are putting off having families so they can establish themselves first. Women are not the ideal worker because of families, which makes them postponing them somewhat of a irony, men will never take off time because they have a wife or a women to take care of their children. We need to change societal views as well as implement better hours that offer some flexibility without harming the mothers career or the corporation/firm. It seems that women cannot win in this profession because they aren’t aggressive enough but are too forthcoming. I female lawyers need to step up their aggressive tactics in the courtroom and leave emotions outside the door but we really need to stop stereotyping and putting all women in one category. You never hear about a male lawyer being emotional and thus effecting all male lawyers’ reputations.

Blog 36

I think women are itching to get back to work. Not all women mind you but many aren’t satisfied sitting at home watching the children. Women want to have careers we want to be known for being good at what we do and that isn’t just care giving. Corporate America will have to do some readjusting before it can lure a large percentage of women back into the work force and I think work life will be radically changed in the next few years. Time has not proven to be kind to women in the work force, and there has been more of a push to gain credit, and recognition in the work place in the past years. The way the economy is and the need for jobs will push women back into work and also have them taking less time off which isn’t fixing the problem but it is a great way to make strides so that future more economically stable women and men can make flexible hours and get the careers they want.

Women are already taking back their careers, more women are getting an education and more are venturing out into male dominated professions. Women are becoming more business savy, due to more education and more of an economic need. The cost of living is expensive and many women have husbands who are out of jobs, or are raising children by themselves so their need to work and to get good work with good pay has increased. More of them are carving out a notch in the work force because it is a necessity and others are refusing to take lower pay, worse hours, or be bullied into generally female labor like being just a secretary. More then likely the receptionist sitting at the front desk will run her own business or work her way because she is going back to school. Women cannot possibly be going back to school and enrolling for the fun of it. They are planning on having careers and going into the work force. We may not be able to lure back women but we can most defiantly make use out of the younger generations ambitions.

blog 35

The article gave insight onto men’s work situations which are being hit economically in these times; women’s work outside of the home has become more needed to support the family. I would assume that with this added responsibility of supporting the family fiscally would make women more of a lynch pin in the working world. Yet, it seems that women in the work place deal with the same issues that they did when they weren’t ‘bread winners’. Are gender norms that engrained in all of our heads that we cannot bear to see a women make a decent paycheck while the man nurtures his family? Gender norms are the reason women aren’t making bigger strides in the work place and most companies stick to the bare minimum when securing care givers rights. The more flexible the work place is the more women who are most likely to benefit can give to their jobs on off hours and from home. The communal stand point of flexibility at work and care givers rights would suggest we all benefit by helping others but in the world we live in now that isn’t a popular theory. The more we work cohesively with care givers the better their work will be because stress will lessen and there will be more work and promotion opportunities for women and minorities. Men still make the ‘ideal worker’ because they need no time to raise children, so women are still being punished in the work place. Women are making up more of the student body in colleges across the United States so it is interesting how work places are going to adjust with this new influx of females in a few years. Will they still be reluctant to hire females even though there are more of them with more qualifications? Will they figure out that women will be just as productive since they will be more qualified or will history and sheer numbers of work days prevail?

blog 34

Working women, may feel like they have nothing to lose by leaving the work place. They deal with so many negatives that it drives them away from the work place, yes it is letting sexism win but can you blame someone for leaving an unhappy environment? I am not saying all women are in bad situations but many do get to deal with harassment on a daily basis so it probably is not that hard of a decision to leave that job to pursue family. Women choosing to leave the work place are different from them not working to get to the top. How frustrating is it to pour hours and work into something you may not get credit for? Some women choose to just give up and some work harder sacrificing time with family and friends. Women are long suffering when it comes to gender and the work place, we aren’t seeing much difference then we saw 20 years ago and it can get discouraging.

Mainstream media, also is glamorizing stay at home mothers with shows like ‘girls next door’ and ‘housewives of Atlanta’ and other cities. These shows are promoting house work and not going into the work place where women are expected to work and act more masculine even if it is not a male dominated field. Women are expected to take on a more ‘male oriented’ work ethic but still they are expected to take care of home and family and to raise children. Their needs our masked by what others expect from them while we do not expect any more from their husbands. If women are expected to work more and to work harder to get promoted something needs to shift outside the work place and in the home. What is amusing is that most companies have consumers, without women there would be no child or new consumers. The full circle is not being looked at either. Women struggle to find their place in their work environments and that is never easy for anyone women have a worse time because they are seen as outsiders in most jobs that are male dominated they have to work harder but are never able to gain as much footing. Their situation is a lot like the welfare reform act forcing single mothers to go to work but not help find child care or help them get any sort of education that would get them a supporting job.

Women are not the ideal worker but we are talented in many areas plus we bring new ideas and a new light onto the work place because we are new to it. Women are getting more education then men these days, and I believe that once this generation of women enters the work force it will start to develop more. I do not believe gender roles will be any different because society is set in their ways of thinking but I think women will start to gain not only more power and prominence in the work place but also they will gain more understanding from employers. Women should not be as torn as they are about having children and a career society should be more supportive towards females working because it stimulates the economy it makes our children more likely to be harder workers and to gain more education. More education and work opportunities means less welfare and more productive companies.

blog 33

Before it was normal for women to be in the workplace many believed that females could not possibly have the brain power to become lawyers. It was a man’s job, and even though it is still a male dominated profession women are charging ahead and breaking through glass ceilings. The fact that women are usually viewed as competent in this profession is a high step. Although there are a multitude of problems regarding sexism in the legal profession.

Most women have to face different issues when trying to get hired on in a law firm. They usually have to have better bar exam scores, and come from higher ranked law schools than their male colleagues do. Women in general have to do more once they are hired as well, they miss out on opportunities that men solely benefit from (guy talk, parties, functions) so they have to work harder with longer hours to get the same recognition. Men’s achievements at the firm are more recognized and more seen then a female’s. Women of different races also have a extremely difficult time being recognized and usually have to work harder than anyone at the firm to get promoted or gain a better book of business.

Family life also interferes with career, women are less likely to be hired because they are thought of as not as serious about their job. Women tend to take time off to have children, which is understandable but in the legal profession it is seen as a nuisance. Male partners are less likely to hire females solely for this reason, and because once a female lawyer has children and a family they sometimes go to part time which is also frowned upon in this work environment. Women even though they may have no intention of having a children still have that bias against them from the start making it harder to prove themselves. They are grouped together instead of being looked at separately.

blog 32

Many of the women in chapter eight spoke about stunning colleagues or being nervous about announcing their pregnancy one women spoke about how another female in the firm was disappointed that she asked for a flexible schedule after giving birth. I never took into consideration how other females viewed female co workers which is shocking to me, I have viewed female co workers that have done less then respectable things with a sadness thinking it’s going to make it that much more difficult and that was at a college get by job. The stresses of being a lawyer and then a mother are over whelming and you can put your child on the back burner, its sexist that many women have to pull out of work and their husbands don’t but that is the normal way of doing things. Many mothers even envy the women who quit when they have children. The women who do stay on or opt out of family life must feel disappointed, let down, and worried when they see more of their female co workers drop out or ask for part time. Even though they are not the same they are all lumped into the category of female and it is harder to break out of that mold when your co workers aren’t there or are living up to the negative expectations of the boys club that can be a law firm. Similarly women with children who work full time are looked at negatively, for instance when I was in 2nd grade I told my teacher how much my mother loved her job, child services was at our door a week later. Im not kidding about this, a women from child services knocked on the door talked to my parents, my grandmother and myself asking if my mother was a fit parent because she worked full time. It was horrifying for my mother and I never understood why until reading this because it was making her out to be a monster when all she was doing was putting food on the table and keeping her and I secure. Women get penalized on both side if they work and if they don’t, instead of focusing on how to make jobs more flexible and how to make sure women get the same benefit men do (vice versa on paternity leave) they are focusing on how a women and her unborn child could affect the bottom line in the black and white structure it is now.

blog 31

Family is a job in itself; children are a huge responsibility and a huge financial obligation. Women come to cross roads when it comes to their career and their family. They have spent so much time, so much money, and years working towards becoming a partner at a law firm and they may be extremely close, but when they have a family things start to shift. They may realize that they aren’t being taken as seriously anymore because many of the male partners do not want someone who is stretching their time so thin and they want the firm to be number one priority which usually is not the case when children come into the picture.
Flexible work hours are not up for negotiation when it comes to law firms, which such a huge want to be in the field there is always someone younger, hungrier and more unattached to take the hours you can’t make because of children. If they do get away with flexible hours the more ‘dedicated’ usually male lawyers have a low respect for them and they are not considered to be key players in the firm. This also makes face time with partners, and it doesn’t make you available for promotions. Also co workers become more hostile if a female in the firm is getting work and part time because they are full time or they are constantly at work. These environments and hostile attitudes make it hard to coop at work and many female lawyers do not want the added stress of that and feel that with added hostility their career goals are further out of reach.
Women have a hard enough time in the field of law, they do not need added point against them, as great as it would be to change the minds of older egotistical males I do not believe that will happen. Men view women as inferior in the work force in pretty much every field but nursing and teaching. Adding on the stress of a family is not good for a career women especially one in a male dominated profession.

blog 30

Sondra Sotamayor is a perfect example of gender roles and being bashed for breaking or trying to break the mold. Gender expectations are doled out to everyone even politicians, female politicians are blasted for being aggressive, smart, and out spoken whereas men are encouraged to be just that. Societies views on women are threatened by women liked Hilary Clinton and Sotamayor and that makes them targets for media and negative back lash. These expectations are stereotypes they expect women to be demure and accepting of others decisions, women are not thought to be leaders they aren’t suppose to be in the forefront of issues and they aren’t suppose to be smart questioning decisions of men. Slowly gender stereotypes and expectations are being rewritten but it takes time and a lot of sacrifice. Hilary Clinton for all that she stands for will be bashed and then in 30 years, maybe less some other women will be able to make it more popular. “Albright is careful when it comes to discussing current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the second woman to hold the position. Rice was mentored by Albright's father, Josef Korbel, while studying at the University of Denver."I am suspending judgment in terms of her particular activities. ... I think we probably learned different things from my father," Albright says” This is also a classic difference, Albright understands that her aggression will get her nowhere in the media and with other politicians so she makes a remark that is biting but still passive aggressive. This isn’t straight forward which I believe is a women’s weakness but her comment makes her point clear without saying anything whereas a male maybe even Bill Clinton could say that he looks down upon her decisions because they are wrong and he would be agreed with. Leadership styles are more about aggression and who can speak the loudest either with words or actions. Women technically are usually very soft spoken compared to men, this give them a disadvantage because they aren’t heard and their ideas can be over looked or taken. Both genders have different qualities they bring to the table, I think the real difference is how women implement authority. Women are more prepared education wise but the subtly of sexism does not prepare them for her battles in higher up positions. Women are going to feel alone in upward positions there are too many men at high level these men are comfortable with the situation so they prevent more women to break through maybe they are doing it purposely or maybe it is subconsciously. The benefits of having female leaders, is that new issues and new ideas come out of their different styles of leadership. Politically more minority groups find more benefits education goes up which helps the economy in the long run. Management wise things can become more structured and organized. Women seem to be more cunning and organized then men, they do have more ‘morals’ because genetically they are more emotionally based but they have the ability to prosper in poor conditions because they are used to having to fight for everything in the work place. Shared leadership is key when it comes to all aspects of life, women and children benefit but so do men, different styles bring different benefits and the expectations of society shift. I also believe that when women take on leadership roles it forces them out of their comfort zone and others comfort zone, women become more aggressive more ambitions and work towards getting to the top it brings out a more efficient worker and affects the rest of the staff to be more productive as well. Most women do not make it to the top of the work environment food chain because they either start families and companies are not flexible or understanding, another way to keep females from making partner or president. That or women become discouraged, which many employees do after they cannot make a dent in the gap or get a simple promotion after years of working they leave to company they are with and start over at a new one. Every time there is a turn over it is expensive and unhelpful for both the company and the employee and women in leadership roles that are fairly earned can make sure that no bias take place as often as it does resulting in a equal work environment.