I informally interviewed a local lawyer who specializing in litigation. The lawyer I interviewed was a female; which I originally thought would give me a lot of insight into gender expectations and stereotypes. Ironically, her answers and perspectives were very different than the readings.
The first question I asked her was about any stereotypes when it comes to female lawyers. She believed that there was no negative stereotypes for women lawyers. She mentioned that some clients think female lawyers are better than men. She felt it was not a bad assumption but I think it could be perceived as a negative stereotype. If clients expect females lawyers to be better than male lawyers then female lawyers must live up to higher expectations.
I asked her the basic question of do you think law is a male dominated field and she said no. She pointed out that more women are graduating from law school than men, which is something that I Found when conducting the second interview paper.
I asked her if there was gender equality in law, relating to pay and opportunities. She made a bold statement that there is gender equality in everything. A specific quote I would like to include for this blog that was very surprising to me under the context of this class was:
“If women make less money than men in certain industries, its because they make certain choices about their career such as taking time off for children, etc.”
It seems that in this class we learned all about gender equality towards female in the work place. I guess I assumed that a female lawyer would believe there was gender equality. I thought she would agree with the readings and give me a firsthand experience that had happened to her. But on the other hand she believed wage inequality came from women taking time off for kids, or in other words societal norms that women must fulfill. I believe I would not have been as surprised if this was coming from a male. Overall, her answers negated what we learned in class and her answers surprised me.
out of curiosity, can you give an age range of the attorney you spoke with? I was wondering if her answers could be explained as the voice of second wave feminism? I have noticed that frequently women in non-traditional fields are sometimes loathe to admit that there are bias and stereotypes that they have to contend with and I think this is often a result of reactions from their friends and colleagues. People really get defensive when you talk about gender bias these days as if it has all gone away--it's a shame really.
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