OUR PERSPECTIVE
Most attorneys -- especially women -- live impossibly busy lives. Finding a balance
between work and life without sacrificing professional success, deciding on the best
practice area or work setting, and making career transitions can be a daunting
task, even for the most gifted and accomplished lawyer.
Just as every person deserves the best possible legal
counsel, every attorney deserves professional, dedicated
support in accomplishing her most important goals.
You know how hard you've worked to get where you are --
you serve others, both personally and professionally.
You've earned the right to both career success and
a fulfilling life.
This newsletter is intended to help you create a
satisfying life -- within, or outside of -- legal practice.
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GENDER ON TRIAL: SEXUAL STEREOTYPES AND WORK/LIFE
BALANCE IN THE LEGAL WORKPLACE
by Holly English. Law Journal Press, 2003.
Holly English, Esq., a former practicing attorney and founder
of the Values at Work consultancy, has written an important
book that should be on the "must-read" list of every attorney
interested in work/life balance for women and men.
BOOK DESCRIPTION
In this post-sex discrimination era, what plagues men and
women in legal workplaces are intractable gender
stereotypes. Scenes they thought were on the ash heap
of history – executive teams and management committees
with no women; women who resent ambitious females;
men unable to take reduced hours; sexist jokes; a
hesitancy to hire women because they may get pregnant
and leave – remain stubbornly alive. A compelling and
important new book reveals the tenacious grip these fixed
stereotypes retain on our cultural imagination -- and what
can be done to loosen their hold.
In Holly English's Gender On Trial: Sexual Stereotypes and
Work/Life Balance in the Legal Workplace, nearly two
hundred lawyers from around the country – as well as
psychologists, consultants and recruiters – testify to
what life is really like for men and women who work
shoulder-to-shoulder in legal workplaces. With a focus
on law firms, along with in-house legal departments,
government offices, and public interest organizations, the
book creates an indelible oral history of a profession still
struggling with persistent stereotypes governing sexuality,
competence, ambition, personal style, leadership, honesty,
motherhood and fatherhood.
The book describes how people react to prescribed roles:
some by conforming, others pushing the boundaries, and
a few flouting them all together. Original concepts such as
"
genderation gap," "underground harassment," "story
making," the "wishful thinking trap," and the "expectations
gap" shed new light on an area that's been examined at
length but foundered for lack of innovative insights and
solutions.
Uniquely for this genre of books, the male viewpoint is as
prominent as the female's. The author tells how lawyers
combat rumors in the workplace to avoid speculation about
sexual wrongdoing. She explores how women can "be the
boss" in the face of hostile attitudes, and questions why shy,
deferential men are marginalized, suggesting ways to
achieve greater workplace acceptance for them. She also
chronicles why even seasoned female practitioners face a
"
second glass ceiling." The book explains why full timers
and part timers find so little common ground, and why
people working reduced hours while raising children are
considered "slackers" lacking "commitment." On these
issues and many more, Ms. English presents a 360-degree
picture of where we stand.
Practitioners share specific tips, with hundreds of eye-
popping anecdotes, about how they handle the confines of
gender roles. They explain how individuals can be change
agents within their workplaces, working to help a colleague,
change a policy, and in the end, make a difference.
Written about lawyers, but accessible for people in all
professions and industries, Gender on Trial tells how to
increase options, so that people can act according to their
individual personalities and attributes, and less because
society expects men to act one way and women another.
In meticulously illuminating the cultural evolution of gender
politics in the legal workplace over the past generation,
Ms. English prescribes innovative new models to help
realize the vision of a workplace free of gender bias.
Sidereal Designs