Is What Women Lawyers Want a Big Mystery?

Bridget Crawford of Feminist Law Professors writes an interesting post, What Women Lawyers Want Is For You To Stop Asking What We Want (and Do Your Own Laundry). Responding to The Complete Lawyer article, What Do Women Lawyers Really Want?, Crawford contends that what women want isn't a huge mystery: "Women want family leave and flexible schedules. We also want partners or family members who can help pick the kids up from school, do the laundry, pay the bills, plan the vacation, buy the birthday presents, get the car fixed, buy groceries, call the school back and find a nursing home for mom – all on the way to a meeting for which we are late."

Crawford points to the lack of women in leadership positions at firms, which might discourage women from utilizing the available "family-friendly" policies and also the structure of billing, which forces lawyers to sell their time rather than any expertise. Crawford also raises the interesting point that perhaps the "problem is not the job itself . . . [but rather] what women are expected to do when they are not engaged in paid labor." The "second shift" coined by Arlie Hochschild (where women work a paid job and then come home to spend hours more on cleaning, cooking, and childcare) might be the real source of frustration for women lawyers (and professional women everywhere). Crawford maintains that since "in the overall scheme of things, men don’t gain much (in terms of economic or non-economic benefits) from helping" women, they won't pitch in anytime soon.