Is Toe Cleavage Unprofessional?

Over at Women Lawyers Back On Track, there's an interesting post on something I admit I never even considered: is it unprofessional to wear shoes that show "toe cleavage"? As reported by the Memphis Daily News, a group of 16 judges and attorneys met at the Tennessee Supreme Court to discuss a dress code for attorneys. The meeting "included an impromptu modeling of shoes to determine if either pair represented 'cocktail shoes,' and if they did, whether they were inappropriate or disrespectful to the courts. It also included questions about how much arm is too much for a woman to show." The meeting was "the result of some judges being offended by too-short skirts, too much cleavage or too much arm being shown, and running shoes being worn in the courthouse." Judge Kay Robilio stated that "it's not as if sexism is dead" and that a woman's attire can play into the problem: "it’s important for a woman’s message to get through intellectually. And it’s important from my perspective that no one’s attention be diverted from the power of representation, which has to have its credence in a well-reasoned argument.”

The meeting resulted in this proposed dress code: “All attorneys should wear appropriate attire. Men shall wear coats, ties, slacks and appropriate footwear, which does not include athletic shoes or shoes without socks. Women shall wear professional and conservative attire, such as dresses with jackets, suits or pantsuits (with appropriate tops), and appropriate footwear, which does not include cocktail shoes or sandals or athletic shoes.” Nicole Black pointed out that her "favorite part of the rule is that the attire for women is specifically described as 'conservative.' For some reason, men need not dress 'conservatively'. Presumably 1970's style leisure suits would be perfectly appropriate for men to wear court."

Women Supervisors: The Danger of Micromanaging

Lately, I’ve started to wonder if women are more likely to be ineffective managers than men. I think, after mulling it over for a few days, that women (who we already know have to work harder to get into positions of power) might have perfectionist complexes that go past the objective and into the subjective, which might make them difficult to work under.

For example, I have a friend who has been complaining to me about his boss (a woman). He says that she likes to be kept “in the loop” on everything he does, including minor emails, and that she will often correct him in front of others or send clarifying emails following his emails that mostly say the same thing he said but in different words. (i.e. he’ll send out an email that says “We’re meeting in the conference room at 10. Please bring your case materials” and she’ll send an email that says “Just to clarify, all the members of the team will be meeting. Please bring your drafts of the memo.”) He can’t stand his boss. At first, I thought he was just chafing to work under a woman or that, if anything, this particular woman was a bit of a micromanager.

I had the issue in my head though, so I started noticing things around my own office. Last week, I had to get a few documents approved by one of my female supervisors, and she made me go back and forth with several minor, subjective changes (i.e. I wrote “individuals” and she wanted “people”). I thought of my friend and started to wonder whether female supervisors feel the need to vouch more for their employees than male supervisors, which then leads to a painful degree of micromanagement. In my case, the document was not that important, and I was actually signing my name to it, so my supervisor wasn’t publicly linked to it at all. Why, then, the need to have me make several superficial wording changes?

Women Blaming Women for Lack of Work/Life Balance

I was shocked to read Monique Doyle Spencer's article in the Boston Globe, Working women, where did we go so wrong? The title should give you an uh-oh feeling, but I was completely unprepared for Doyle's topic sentence: "I think we women ruined the workplace." In a nutshell, her argument is that wolmen responded to their opportunities to finally work in high-power jobs by working harder than their male counterparts without demanding salary increases when, according to Doyle, they should have worked the same hours as men and demanded equal pay. Consequently, her argument goes, women blew an opportunity to create a more livable profession for everyone by not demanding said livable professio in those early days and instead playing into a workaholic norm.

Am I alone in wondering how pioneer women, who were battling stereotypes and prejudices about whether they deserved their jobs or could hack it in a man's world, could have stayed in the game if they'd refused to put in extra hours and instead demanded higher wages, flexible work hours, and 45-hour weeks right from the get-go? Doyle states that "we were supposed to demand equal pay, not whimper through our year-end review. We were supposed to 'smarten' the workday. If your job takes you more than 45 hours a week to complete, you are going to too many meetings that you shouldn't be at." Apparently Doyle is unfamiliar with law firms, where you actually bill hours and may not be able to meet your firm's required billing time if you only work 45 hours a week. Also, why is a woman's responsibility to "'smarten' the workday"? What does that even mean?

Doyle goes on to task women with the job of creating part-time opportunities for both men and women. How? Doyle takes a hard line: "We were supposed to figure out how to do that." Great, if only those pioneer women had Doyle around for strategic consultation back in the good old days. The article goes on with more ranting about what women should have done (no suggestions as to HOW) and then ends with the priceless gem: "I think we should celebrate National Women's Month with a big apology to our mothers and daughters for blowing the biggest opportunity in history to create real change."

Well, this woman feels no need to apologize. I feel strongly that Doyle is full of it in suggesting that women in those early days had any power to change the system, and I think she is naive to suggest that these issues are solely women's issues or soleley women's responsibilty to change. Men have just as big a stake in raising productive members of society and spending valuable time with their children. Men have an equal interest in efficient work environments and work/life balance. It's sexist to assume that women are alone in needing or valuing these things, and it is ignorant to think that anything can change without men and women working together.

Can you be likable and still get ahead?

I read Are You Living Your Life Like You're Planning to Fail on Ms. JD the other day and thought of it immediately when I read this article in the New York Times on the imposter phenomenon. The imposter phenomenon was coined by two therapists in the 1970s "to describe the internal experience of a group of high-achieving women who had a secret sense they were not as capable as others thought." Now, researchers have found that men and women of all ages experience the imposter phenomenon, which basically means you think you've achieved your success because of being lucky or able to fake competence you don't really have. Two Purdue psychologists, however, recently surveyed 135 college students and discovered that while both genders suffered from the imposter phenomenon, the effects on men and women who scored highly on the imposter scale were quite different.

"Different Leadership Styles" or Gender Bias: How Do You Get Behind Euphemisms?

After only 17 months in her post, Susan Prager, the first female president of Occidental College, resigned. Gender bias is not cited as the cause of her departure by any of the parties involved. Instead, neutral words that say very little purport to explain the resignation. Prager said she did not have "a strong compatibility" with the board chairman and senior administrators. Dennis Collins, the board chairman, expressed regrets that he and Dean Prager "were not able to work together as [they] envisioned."

Prager's position at Occidental was not her first foray into leadership: Prager was the dean of UCLA Law School for 16 years and the second woman to serve as president of the Association of American Law Schools. Given these credentials, I couldn't help but wonder when I read about Prager's sudden resignation whether her gender had something to do with her lack of "compatibility" with the leadership at Occidental, especially given the less opaque commentary made by other members of the Occidental community.

Flextime Mommies: How Can We Avoid Resentment?

I was reading this article on the "army of exploitative mummies" (the British way to write mommies) in the Ms. JD Weekly Round-up, and my first reaction was indignation.

Can you take a compliment?

I’ve noticed that I really can’t. Professionally, I seem to demean myself a lot by refusing to accept compliments and by trying to make other people feel more comfortable around me by pretending that I’m not really that good at anything. It's not that I don't think I'm good at anything, it's more that 1) don't want to be seen as a braggart or as someone with a huge ego and 2) my socialized impulse always seems to be brushing off compliments rather than accepting them. I notice that a lot of other women behave similarly, either reflecting a compliment back at the giver ("No, you did such a great job!") or by completely deflecting it ("It wasn't anything special.") or by countering the compliment with a self-effacing comment ("Well, you should see how awful I am at X.") I don't notice men doing any of the above when given a compliment.

Are We Unwilling to Break the Glass Ceiling?

Last week the Financial News featured an article boldly called Women Unwilling to Break Glass Ceiling. The byline read, "Lack of aspiration and financial motivation, rather than overt discrimination, might be to blame."

Demanding a more livable profession: why women who want it all aren't the problem

Many of you likely saw the post by Peter Lattman on Law Blog last month on the MIT Workplace Center report: Women Lawyers and Obstacles to Leadership. As basically yet another study documenting women lawyers’ exit from the workforce, the study itself was less interesting to me than the comments after Lattman’s post. Among them, “Backwards” writes, “Something is backwards when it’s a ‘crisis’ for women to leave law firms in deference to their roles as mothers. I ask you: which job is more important, being a lawyer or being a mother?” Does this comment imply that working mothers are somehow elevating their jobs over their children? Why is it an either/or proposition?