Unit D - Blog 26

Males that assist female lawyers are treated almost as equals, even when they are junior to the female managing partner. I found it remarkable that there is such an obvious indifference the way these female lawyers described their treatment. The example of the body language differences is likely the first way they experience. The manager partner stated how the client would naturally face the male and makes strong eye contact and turns his chair towards the male assistant, but when she stated she was the manager partner, their entire demeanor would change and they wouldn’t even make eye contact. The sad part about it is that most of the individuals that are displaying these behaviors don’t even notice that they are doing it. The most degrading example discussed in Gender on Trial was when they were at meetings and they would expect a senior female to order food and take care of those types of arrangements. The things I found most stunning about these instances was that the dialogue implied that they performed these tasks even though they didn’t think it was right, or if it frustrated them. As far as workload, some examples the book listed is that women in senior positions would have to perform paralegal tasks. I have a friend that used to be a paralegal for a male lawyer and the entire reason she quit was because of the amount of workload she had over the other paralegal who was a male. When I first started working with her about six months ago and we were discussing out previous work experiences I asked her why she left her job as a paralegal. Her answer was that the last firm she worked for she was treated terrible and had an outrageous work load. She went on to say that she had to do all kind of daunting tasks like getting coffee and reorganizing the office. The last area discussed in Gender on Trial was how males acted during interviews. Again, this demonstrated poor body language and eye contact towards the female. I found it interesting that the female partner’s notes were almost completely opposite of the male partner’s notes. The main trend I have noticed in all of the materials pertaining to lawyers and politicians is the lack of credibility they have as far as being smart and intelligent. It seems that they are always questioned on their intellect no matter how much education they have completed, and how much they have proven it. English points out that a lot this questioning and these inequalities come from the older males, but these are the types of behaviors that learned by the next generation or wave of men in those fields. I agree that there has been progress, but if all of these behaviors are still accepted, they are going to continue.