I just have to vent about the most recent, and blatently sexist, experience of my law school career.
As I sat in appellate advocacy this evening, along with fellow students and professors, we watched a series of video clips of lawyers arguing before an appellate court. After each clip students and professors would critique what was good or bad about the lawyers' arguments to the court. After the first clip, involving two mediocre attorneys, everyone offered valuable critiques both towards the good and the bad elements of the lawyers' arguments.
However, when it came to the second clip, it was an entirely different, and sexist, ballgame. The second clip involved a female attorney arguing a difficult (and most likely losing) issue to the court. But, unlike the mediocre lawyers from the previous clip, this lawyer was amazing! Not only was she posed, collected and articulate, but she also made so many rational and complex arguments that you almost thought she might win her case!
Anyways, after the clip was done, and I was totally crushing on how absolutely amazing this lawyer was and how I want to be her when I grow up- the sexist comments began!
The professor raises his hand, and says (and I paraphrase) something along the lines of: well she certainly was impressive, and I just don't know of any male attorneys could ever put forth that kind of advocacy. I think it's just something about the emotion that a woman lawyer brings to the stand that makes her arguments that much more emotionally powerful. It just reminded me so much of seeing Sarah Palin speak.
Me (and I paraphrase):
Excuse me, did he really just say that?
oh, and after that, he manages to ask the class if we think that might be a tad bit of a sexist thing to say.
oh. i think maybe.
Why is it that everytime a smart, articulate and successful woman achieves something it has to be equated to some "natural" ability all women have. Can't it just be that she is GOOD at something? Can't it just be that she worked hard, and that she is just better at something then the men you know are?
And why is it that this lawyer reminded him of Sarah Palin. They certainly didn't appear to have anything in common besides the fact that they are both women. Gosh, I forgot. All women are exactly the same. All women are naturally good at the same things, and naturally bad at the others. That must be why all women love cooking, having babies and staying home while their husbands go to work.
Forget the fact that this lawyer had prepared so diligently for the case and that she knew the questions the judges would ask before they did. Forget that she understood the correct words to place emphasis on and the emotional cues to use when putting forth her arguement. Wouldn't you rather just talk about how she managed to not cry when the judge's asked a fragile woman such tough questions. Give me a break.
I am just so disgusted to hear more sexist, sterotypical and ignorant remarks. I so sick of society in general equating everything a woman does to her "natural" abilities because she is a "woman". Whatever that means and whatever those are I would love to know. Personally I know plently of men who could have never argued the way this lawyer did, and I know many women who couldn't have done it either. The fact that this professor belittled this woman's accomplishment by referencing sexist steretypes makes me sick.
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I don't know why, but this post really struck a chord with me. Although I'm in a different academic field, I empathize so much with you. Your distress--so very well-founded--started my righteous indignation flowing.
You write so persuasively about this issue--logical and passionate at the same time. You convince the reader that the professor's attitude and words were an injustice, one that demands correction.
I hope you kick law school and the bar exam's ass. I think you will make a very effective advocate.
Of course, it isn't any less offensive when it's done as an insult rather than a compliment.
The sad thing is that the guy could have started an interesting discussion over whether a judge or jury were more likely to find a particular argument effective when being delivered by a female lawyer because of their own prejudices. Is a male-dominated jury more likely to be persuaded by an attractive female lawyer? Is a sexist jury less likely to be persuaded by a female lawyer? Does a female lawyer have a better chance of convicting a female defendant? Heck, why stay with gender? Is a black prosecutor more or less likely to put away a black defendant? Discussions on how to exploit or nullify jury's or judge's prejudices would be a very interesting topic and IMO something that a law school should discuss. It seems that the prof was not nearly so enlightened, though, and just made a misogynistic emotion = woman leap. How disappointing.
What's particularly annoying is that this kind of gender essentialism was once used to explain why women, for example, couldn't be lawyers: "They're so emotional, they'd never be able to handle the courtroom."
Then they broke the glass ceiling, and the same men said, "Well, of course they're good at this, they've got a natural emotional sensibility!"
Old wine in new bottles.
Totally agree. Yesterday in my lit class we were talking about the relationship between Zues+Hera in The Iliad, and I was saying how it's frustrating that Hera has to use sex to gain power in a certain passage. Then this other girl was like "well isn't she just using her natural abilities as a woman?" I wanted to punch her in the face. It was SO FRUSTRATING. Why should women be stuck using their bodies to gain power when men are granted the right to analytical debate?
UGH.
This kind of reminds me of something my mom once faced when she used to work as a lawyer, and when she was still married to my dad, who is also a lawyer. She'd sometimes have to deal with women who'd tell her things like, "Oh, it must be SO fascinating to be married to a lawyer!" To which she'd reply, "I don't know, why don't you ask him?" since she actually was a better lawyer and worked much harder at her type of law. Of course, the women would be puzzled at the thought that she might do something so high-powered too.
Or - even worse - I went to a conservative Christian elementary school and whenever I was sick they would always call her. She'd reply that she was very busy and that my dad was probably more available to pick me up than she was. And they'd say, "But YOU'RE the mother." They were convinced she was a bad mother simply because she worked longer hours than my dad did...
The extent of sexism still present in this country never ceases to amaze me. I wonder if I'll have to deal with this crap after I get my Ph.D.?
Did you argue your point with the Professor?
If not, have you thought about bringing it up to him and the class for discussion?
Oh good God.
WHAT the hell is this crap? We're verging on the second decade of the 21st century. Women have been voting for almost a hundred years in most of the Western world, working independently and allowed access to reproductive rights for almost half that time, and still, STILL, people think our emotions trump our smarts as effective tools for both communication and argument? For basically every decision we make? Hasn't the existence of birth control proven that we do think things through? Professors of law in institutions of education are still degrading us this way, after law has done so much to grant us rights?
I recently finished a writing program, and in one class, we were discussing fighter pilots (I forget why it was relevant). Someone mentioned a study that had shown women are better suited to fighter-pilotry for the simple fact that we tend to be shorter, and hence have a lower centre of gravity, which, I forget why, is a benefit to a fighter pilot. A guy in my class raised his hand and said, "But women don't really make good fighter pilots because they are generally too emotional."
Now, this guy isn't exactly known for his tact or his insight, so most of us ladies got over it soon enough. But the fact that your law professor - a professional arguer, for goodness sake - would say something to the same effect makes me damn angry. What the hell do we have to do to prove that women aren't all addled by emotion like it's some kind of hallucinogenic drug?
Nicole, you want to know what "the rub" is with your well-formulated and accurate comment?
Your fighter-pilot friend and the esteemed prof above would each use your passion as "evidence" that women are "emotional."
Because when men argue points in which they have a deep intellectual investment, they always do so dryly and with a poker-straight face, no throbbing veins, raised voices or sputters.