Nerdlaw asks, “why do so few women reach the top of law firms?” (www.nerdlaw.org/2006/03/interesting-question.html) Well, cos they have babies right? Derr. Well, apparently not. Amazingly they often leave for other reasons and to pursue other careers. So why would a woman who has invested years into work and training not want to go all the way?
Allow Ruthie to make a few suggestions: could it be, possibly that the environment at the top of many firms is not the most welcoming to women? That maybe evenings spent at the club or afternoons on the golf course winning clients may not always appeal? Or that because most directors are men firms still subconsciously assume that they will want a male lawyer?
Where women do become partners it tends to be in the “softer” fields, i.e. family or non-contentious work, and Ruthie also observes that where women are made partners they are usually given female staff. Women are perceived as not being sufficiently aggressive to be successful litigators, and the lifestyle of litigation also tends to be unsympathetic to family life.
And the other reason women don’t make partner: testosterone, or more accurately lack thereof. It’s the hormone that makes men want to win, and why despite the fact that the average women is 2% more intelligent than the average man, she says “yes dear” when he talks shite instead of arguing back. It’s no accident that women in positions of power have much higher than average levels of the stuff.
Now that more than half of entrants to the profession are women, sheer numbers must surely force firms to rethink some of their attitudes. But then again, maybe not since the people writing firms business strategies are still invariably men..
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