The ABA Journal's "Featured Weekly Blawg" contains sexist, obscene and offensive content

Freshfields Encourages Female Attorneys to "Embrace Femininity"

A recent article in Marie Claire UK reports that Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP has suggested to its female attorneys that they "embrace their femininity" by wearing stiletto heels paired with skirts. This suggestion comes as a part an "image changing course" used in the firm's UK offices to advise staff on how to dress professionally.

One of the oldest firms in the City, Freshfields has felt compelled to hire image consultants to offer honest opinions on workwear at the 2,400-strong company.

The image consultants have warned female employees that:

... [a]lthough accentuating your leg length is highly recommended, necklaces are to be avoided for fear of drawing attention to the bustline.

For the full article, click here.

Why Was It Funny for Obama's Speechwriter to Grope Senator Clinton?

If you look up Barack Obama's 27-year-old speechwriter, Jon Favreau, on Wikipedia, you'll learn that n December of 2008, "a picture of Favreau performing a suggestive gesture (grabbing a breast) to a cardboard cut-out of Hillary Clinton surfaced on Facebook" and that allegedly Clinton's "spokesman referred to the photo as 'an example of just good-natured fun between former rival camps.'"  

Ex-Law Student Leads Landmark Battle Against Sexual Harassment in Egypt

"A recent study by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights found that 83 percent of Egyptian women and 98 percent of foreign women experience public sexual harassment in [Egypt]..., including explicit comments, groping, men exposing themselves and assault," reports the Los Angeles Times.

A 27-year-old former law student, however, has fought back by pursuing a complaint in a landmark case.  The young woman, who was groped by a truck driver, was urged to file a complaint by her father, documentary filmmaker Noha Rushdi Saleh.  The truck driver was sentenced, in October, to three years of hard labor.

Southern Ms. Part VI: Identifying Discrimination

A few weeks ago I witnessed a female lawyer (hereinafter "Lady, Esq.") accuse a male lawyer (hereinafter "Gentleman, Esq.") of sexism and discrimination. It started with Gentleman, Esq. commenting on Lady, Esq. being rude and disrespectful to him. Lady, Esq. responded by explaining her snarkiness and sarcasm were in response to his condescension.

Gentleman, Esq. asked Lady, Esq. to "calm down." I know I'm guilty of a sexist stereotype, but nevertheless I've got to say it: "calm down" is possibly the most infuriating thing a male professional can say to a female professional. It implies sexism even where there might not be any. Gentleman, Esq. went a step further, describing Lady, Esq. as having a "hissy fit." An extremely poor choice of words, brimming with gender connotations.

Lessons from the Courtroom: The Crying Game

We've discussed crying before here, here, and here. I have cried at work, but not in a work-related context: I got choked up when a family member was dying, when I got in a personal disagreement with a good friend at work, and when I was feeling particularly homesick. I also once comforted a friend at work whose pet was sick. I did not feel I had been unprofessional in these situations - but it's clear from the conversations we've had in this area that I could have beenperceived as such.

What I did think was unprofessional was crying in a professional capacity, i.e. during oral argument, trial, negotiations, or any other representative capacity. Recently, I witnessed another attorney cry in court. The thing that made this attorney so emotional was another attorney attacking her. Both attorneys had strayed from the core issues of the case and were focused on one another's behavior, which they each deemed inappropriate. Regardless of whether or not the allegations of improper lawyering were warranted, both the initial attack and the teary reaction seemed to me to be entirerly unprofessional.

Equal Pay Day: Scholarship on Advocacy and Equity

Today, Friday, April 18, 2008 is Equal Pay Day. The National Women's Law Center is encouraging bloggers to voice their support for the Fair Pay Restoration Act. Lest you think the wage gap doesn't reach attorneys (after all those law firms have lock-step and hour-based associate salaries and partners are just paid according to their client base, right?) study after study has confirmed that gender pay equity continues to be a goal and not a reality in the legal profession as well.

Recently Judge Kaye and Anne Reddy reported that as recently as November 2007, the National Association of Women Lawyers found that, of thirty-five firms willing to report compensation by gender, the average median compensation of a male equity partner was almost $90,000 higher than that of a female equity partner, $27,000 higher than that of a female nonequity partner, and $20,000 higher in the of counsel position. 90% of firms report their top earning member is a man.

I've written on the motherhood wage gap - that is the penalty working mothers pay when they have children that cannot be attributed to reduced time or commitment in the office. National longitudinal studies by the US Department of Labor have documented a statistically significant drop in the wage trajectories of women with children not experienced by fathers.

Blogging for a cause is a growing trend and part of a more general recognition of the power blogging can have for women in particular!

Girls Being Girls: A Lot Less Steamy Than Boys Being Boys

Julia Baird's article, Girls Will Be Girls. Or Not. Why aren't more powerful public women caught up in sex scandals?, explores an interesting side of the gender power imbalance: why "are so few women in politics embroiled in tabloid tales?" There are few obvious female counterparts to the Eliot Spitzers and Jim McGreeveys (aka "Luv Guvs") of the political world. Of the "handful of minor scandals involving women in public office in America," the majority arise from "love affairs, not casual—or commercial—liaisons." The lack of "indiscretion" by female politicians leads to a call for more women to be elected to office. For example, former White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers, states: "I'm confident predicting there would be fewer sex scandals if women were in power … I don't think Hillary Clinton is going to be hitting on the intern."

Is it just that women dislike cigars and blowing four grand on casual affairs, or are the lack of female power peccadilloes telling of a deeper gender imbalance? For example, Baird notes that "while there are 86 women in Congress, and one in four state politicians is female, few are prominent enough to attract savage media scrutiny" in contrast to the men who fill the majority of elected positions. If it's not about the numbers (fewer powerful women, fewer high profile scandals), then maybe it's about the stigma. As Baird notes, "historically, women who stray have suffered more than men who do. Men are often forgiven more easily—their dalliances are considered a lapse, an uncontrollable urge." This stigma can have a higher cost for powerful women. When Edwina Currie, a British politician, disclosed her affair with a male politician, "only a third thought worse of him, half thought worse of her."

Over at Jezebel, another theory is put forward that "men don't find female power erotic": "female politicians don't have more affairs because men don't see them as more powerful, or find that power to be attractive. Young guys want nothing to do with Hillary Clinton because power and experience and age are not valued in women in our culture." The conclusion being that it isn't "a question of whether women cheat less or are better people; it's that a female politician would have less opportunity to cheat in the first place, as the men around her are unlikely to throw themselves at her."

It's interesting that you do see May-December couples with an attractive younger man and older woman, but most if not all of those couples involve a very beautiful woman (Ashton and Demi, Eva and Tony)--it's not like these guys are grabbing onto decrepit sugar mamas. On the other hand, there are still too many examples to list of rich, older, unattractive men with beautiful younger women (Donald and Melania, Anna Nicole and 90-year-old husband, etc.) I for one am not really in the market for a much younger man who wants to live off my fortune, so I don't much care if poweful women isn't an image that plays well while shopping for arm candy. But, on a deeper level, it is troubling that powerful women are sexual kryptonite and that women pay a higher social price for "being girls" in the way that boys like to be boys.

Does Sexism Still Exist?

The word on the street seems to be that if you think you're the victim of sexism, you are either paranoid or looking for excuses for a non-gender-related failing. I myself am guilty of blaming sexism--when I blogged about a male colleague who changed one of my recommendations at work behind my back, I bitterly recounted the story to friends with the added conclusion: "he never would have done that if I were a male colleague." But, maybe he would have. How can I really be sure? Likewise, Jessie posted on a new law review article that indicates how little progress has been made in the last 20 years in equalizing pay and partner positions between women and men in firms. Is the cause sexism? Is it women's own choices to opt out of the profession? Are those choices based on a sexist society? What does that even mean? Again, how can we know for sure?

I drive myself crazy thinking in circles, and I am left wondering how we can ferret out (and exterminate) sexism when it's often so deeply undercover in our workplaces or whether sexism is already dead. Hillary's campaign for the White House has really brought this issue home. Did sexism damage her campaign or not? I read an interesting article today by Chris Reed about all the completely gender-neutral reasons (except, perhaps, for Obama's ability to generate more excitement than Clinton, which may have something to do with a sexist tendency to value men's points more than women's) that Hillary's campaign faltered. I read this article, and I nodded to myself that these points logically explained why voters would reject Hillary regardless of her gender. However, just because there are gender-neutral explanations for why something is so, it doesn't necessarily mean that those logical, neutral reasons actually had a causal relationship with the outcome. For example, just because we can logically explain why women would be less likely to make partner because of their own personal choice to take time off to raise families, it doesn't mean that this neutral, logical reason is the actual cause of women's less than stellar represenation as firm partners.

Though we don't often have an insight into the behind-the-scenes thoughts of our work colleagues, we do have a lot of insight into the behind-the-scenes thoughts of at least some voters. For example, we've all probably heard about the Hillary nutcracker, complete with spikes between the legs; the video "How It Will Feel if Hillary Gets Elected", which features a woman kicking a man repeatedly in his most sensitive area (the assumption being that a woman in power is somehow emasculating to men); or the variety of anti-Hillary t-shirts, with mottos like "Hillary's a c*nt" or "Hillary is not a c*nt, a c*nt is useful" or "Face it bitch you're fu**ed" with a dog with Obama's face mounting a dog with Hillary's face. These are only a few examples. I'm not even a Hillary supporter, and I felt sick and insulted and defiled reading these t-shirts as they seemed to denigrate all women and not just one presidential candidate. By point of comparison, the exact same website featured anti-Obama t-shirts with slogans much more specific to his own qualities as a candidate like "The Audacity of Inexperience" and "Barack OBummer" and "Empty Suit." It is nearly impossible to read these t-shirts in a way that says something derrogatory about all men whereas the anti-Hillary t-shirts make points using stereotypes about women in general. If sexism were dead, why would it be funny to watch a video of a woman kicking a man in the balls in relation to a woman running for president? Why would everyone get a good laugh from displaying a nutcracker in the shape of a female presidential candidate? I'm not saying that Hillary's problems are due entirely to sexism, but I have no doubt that this campaign has brought sexism out of its dark closet. It's out there, ladies, and it's ignorant to think that we as lawyers aren't affected by it in our jobs the same way that Hillary is affected by it in hers.

Blog Watch: Daily Kos Tallies Women in Top Elected Offices

Daily Kos has tallied up the number of women in top elected positions in response to Hillary Clinton's comment about Iowa and Mississippi never electing any. Kos notes that a number of other states could be added to that pathetic list if you excluded the widows who succeeded their late-husbands and Lt. Governors who succeeded their bosses mid-term.