Blog #38: Sandra Day O'Connor

Sandra Day O’Connor was the first women appointed to the Supreme Court. When President Reagan said that he was going to appoint a woman to the bench no one really believed him. They just figured he said it to get elected, but when we was elected that he would sweep it under the bridge. He proved everyone wrong when he gave Sandra Day O’Connor a call in 1981. She said it herself that she more surprised than anyone to receive the call. After she graduated from law school Sandra Day O’Connor could not find a job that would pay her. She got her start by working for free in a small office that she shared with a secretary. Eventually, she had proved herself as a good lawyer and got a salary and an office of her own. She had not done any Federal work and she was just doing her thing in Arizona. She took the job though and said that she felt overwhelmed for the first year or so on the bench. Her whole staff was as green as she was. It was new to all of them. She had so much work to do with the mail alone and she had no idea about how the process worked and what she was supposed to do. She felt her way through it though and makes a great difference on the bench and to women everywhere. She opened the door for so many more women and put a huge crack in the glass ceiling that has been oppressing women for decades. Many people speak of Sandra Day O’Connor as the “swing vote” on the Supreme Court. Being the swing vote means that she was the deciding vote on a lot of issues. It was a topic that she did not like to speak of though.

Blog #37: ABA Report

There were similarities and differences between the report, Charting Our Progress, by the American Bar Association Commission and Holly English’s book, Gender on Trial. The first similarity was as simple as reporting on the presence of women in the law field. The accounted that the number on women as lawyers and who have graduated from lawyer has increased quite significantly. However, they also both reported that women are still facing many barriers in the profession and that a lot of these barriers stem for attitudes that have not changed. Both also talked of the stereotypes that are associated with women lawyers, such as, being too aggressive, too emotional, and too bossy. When these traits are attributed to male lawyers they are seen as good things instead of as negative attributes when applied to women lawyers. They are also talked down to by men in the law field by not addressing them correctly. The report and English’s book both talked of the family friendly policies that are available. The majority of the time these policies are unwritten. When women and men chose to exercise their right to use the policy they are ostracized and penalized. They are also seen as less committed to the job. The both expressed concerns with the billable hours that they are required to meet. This has caused some women to leave their positions. English went further by saying that women are more honest in their billing of hours. The report by the ABA stated concerns that gay and lesbian lawyers were facing; English tried to not get that diverse in the issue. Both the report and English stated that mentoring was very important and that more mentoring programs need to be adapted to the firms. Another similarity was to have more flexible hours for lawyers to be able to utilize. The report and the book were both very educational on learning what women, and some men, go through on a regular basis. It was also obvious that change needs to happen.

Blog #36: Talk of the Nation

Can corporate America lure women back into the workforce? I think corporate America can lure women back into the workforce; it is just going to take a lot of change and understanding. I personally do not see why any man or woman would want to work long hours and then be on-call 24 hours of the day. I understand that Americans are obsessed with success and money, but at what cost. What good is making all this money if you never get to go out and enjoy it? The NPR broadcast “Talk of the Nation” stated that Americans work on average 100 hour more per year than any other industrial nation in the world. I just do not understand why. One of the men who called in to NPR stated that he observed 25 measurable differences between men workers and women workers. Men are concerned with how to make money. The man said that men in general feel like they have an obligation to make more money. Women on the other hand center their work on achieving a balance. The balance women are looked for are: work, family, and having a life. Yes, the glass ceiling is still a problem, but fortunately it has lessened somewhat over the past years. Some people feel that women are forced, but the main consensus was that women opt out and do not want to make the sacrifices that are necessary to be on the top rungs of business. To get women to come back to the workforce businesses need to be more flexible and provide reduced hours. One gentleman said that doctors can still be good doctors if they work 40 hours to 70 hours instead of over a hundred hours a week. It is obvious that women bring great skills and talents to the job. The jobs that have women in the top positions are more successful than the jobs that do not. That should be enough of an incentive to make the necessary changes to get women to come back to work.

Blog #35: EEOC

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) submitted a document titled “Best Practices”. This document is not a binding document, but was writing to get business to go above and beyond the minimum requirements to promote work/family balance. The EEOC understands that there are so many more necessities for care giving that is required of employees. Most people only think of parents as being childcare providers. They tend to forget that the elderly need to be cared for and that falls to their children most of the time. There are also family members who are suffering from medical conditions, some of which are terminal. The document reminds employers that these caregivers not only work for pay, but when they clock out they are going home to work unpaid hours. I also like how the document from the EEOC mentions the recession and how providing for the family has fallen to a lot of the women because their husbands have been laid off. Now we have women working the double shift and only making ¾ the pay that their male counterparts are making. By making the work environment more family friendly will help to alleviates so much of the stress that caregivers are under. English also refers to the benefits that can be had by companies and firms that adopt more family friendly policies. To give that extra support their company will benefit in overall productivity and they will both earn more money and save money on lowering the turn-over rate. Both English and the EEOC document talk about how most of the care-giving duties fall to women. The EEOC goes further than English did and also extended that colored women do more of the care-giving then their white women counterparts. EEOC document stresses the importance that by making more family-friendly work environments it will improve the care-givers ability to “balance work and life”, which is exactly what English has been stressing throughout her book.

Blog #34: Unbending Gender

Joan William’s interview relates a lot to the material we have read in Gender on Trial. Even with the Family and Medical Leave Act there is a lot of discrimination going on that is related to the work/family balancing issue. Joan Williams speaks of women and men who have been penalized for taking care of a sick loved one. There were cases where the employee was assured that everything was fine and that it would all work out. She was assured that her job would still be there when she go back from being with and taking care of her premature daughter. Then out of the blue she finds out that her job has been terminated and her position has been filled. If she wants to come back and work for the company, then she has to apply for another job and take a lower salary. Then, there was the case of the State Trooper who could not get leave approved and had to keep going to work to get his pay check while his wife was struggling at home with the new born baby. Joan Williams also talks about her book Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What To Do About It (Oxford University Press, 2000). She describes what she means by the term “unbending” and I am glad they asked that question because I was unsure about what it meant as well. “Unbending” means that after all these years of women swarming the work force and having careers of their own, gender roles and expectations have not changed in the least, but instead there are more traits as to what is acceptable for females and what is acceptable for males.

In Gender on Trial, Holly English (2003) reflects on gender stereotypes that are associated with men and women lawyers which makes it hard to have both families and careers. Both English and Williams talk about the characteristics that males are faced with in the workplace. Men are expected to be the providers of the family. When a man expresses his interest in taking time off or reducing his hours to spend time at home with his family or to take care of the kids so his wife can go to work, he is met with questions of “Why?” and complete puzzlement as to his intentions. No one can seem to understand why a man would like to actually spend time with his family and know his kids. Both English and Williams also talked about how employees were penalized after they returned to work after a leave of absence or paternity/maternity leave. Clients were lost or responsibilities were taken away. Williams had some good ideas about how to make America a more family-work friendly place. She suggested prorating salaries for reduced hours, having more subsidies for childcare, and to have benefits for women who are working full-time in the home to take care and raise their children. Americans’ differentiate between “market work” and “family work”, Williams suggests providing benefits for the “family work” aspect of life as well.

Blog #33: Women Advancement

Women have been making their way up the advancement ladder for many decades now. Lawyers are no different. The first woman appointed to the Supreme Court was Sandra Day O’Connor. She was not considered to hold a very high esteem when President Reagan called her up in 1981. No one even knew who she was and she had no experience in a Federal Court System at all. In no way am I implying that Justice O’Connor did not hold her own because she certainly did. Sandra Day O’Connor got her seat on the bench because President Reagan said he would appoint a woman to the Supreme Court. This act opened up the door of opportunity for many women. We now have two women on the Supreme Court and there are women who head Fortune 500 companies and there are women partners in law firms. Women are making advancements in every occupation. The problem is that the number of women in these positions is still very low. Linda Tarr-Whelan stated in “Shared Leadership: The Value Women Leaders Bring,” that if women made up even 1/3 of the boards in America it would make a big difference in the economy and in society. This number, however, is only at 16%. Women have done everything they need to do to prepare and get the education they need to succeed. America just is not “utilizing their talents” (Linda Tarr-Whelan). Women face so many challenges in the form of stereotypes. It is okay for a man to be aggressive; he is just going after what he wants. When a woman is aggressive she is seen a hot-tempered and bitchy. If a woman shows empathy, then she is too emotional and cannot make the tough decisions that are necessary for her to make. When a man shows the same empathy, then he is sensitive and caring. This double standard is only succeeding in keeping women down. As Madeline Albright said, “it is harder to be a woman, then a man” (Madeline Albright on Policy, Sexism, and Politics).

Blog #32: Lawyer Parenting

There have always been differences in the way men and women parent their children and stereotypes associated with each gender. Women lawyers and men lawyers differ in parenting and thinking as well. When it comes to parenting it ultimately comes down to what the mother and father want out of their family relations and out of their careers. Women have been stereotyped as the care taker of children and domestic chores at home. With that stereotype in mind women lawyers have many decisions to make. If a woman lawyer goes after her career while she has kids than she is deemed as an unfit mother. How can a lawyer work long hours and be good at her job and be a good mother to her young children? The common thinking is that she cannot do both. If she goes the other way and wants to reduce her hours so she can spend time with her family and do her motherly duties than there is no way she can be a good lawyer too. It is common thinking that you cannot be both a good lawyer and a good parent. This also effects whether or not woman put pictures up in their office or if they decide to not even mention their family lives.

Men are playing on an entirely different playing field. If we go back to the stereotype of women being the care provider, then the men are the financial providers. When a man in the law profession gets married and has a child, then male colleagues welcome him into the “club” and assume that no he is going to work more hours and work even harder to provide for his family. But, when this same man decides that he actually wants to have a life outside the office and be a part of his children’s childhood then he received even more criticism than the woman lawyer. He is going against all the traditional roles men are expected to have. Why would he want to be a part of his kid’s lives? That is a woman’s job. His job is to work and put food on the table. English’s (2003) study showed that there are actually a lot more men out there who do want to be family men (and even if they are not family men she found that they want to have a life outside the office). These men are not free to express their views though. Instead of saying their child is sick so they will not be making it into the office; they just say they will not be in today. No explanation offered at all and none wanted.