Post #32

Males and females have always been held to different standards when it comes to parenting. Although gender roles within the family are changing now, with it being more accepted for men to be more directly involved with parenting, women are still seen as the one who should be raising the children. Male and female lawyers are also held to different standards when it comes to parenting.

Women are still the parent who is held most responsible for children. The mother is seen as the nurturing parent, there to raise and mold children into good people. They are the ones given maternity leave. If a child is sick, the mother is the parent expected to stay home with them while they recover.

This can definitely come into play in whether or not a woman is even hired by a firm or not. One woman in English’s study said that she felt as though many young women were prevented from being hired by her firm because conclusions about her future—getting married and becoming pregnant and having children—were made. She remarked that her colleagues said “she’s just getting married, how long before she has kids? When she comes back she won’t be a productive.” She commented that there “was respect for intelligence and work product for all, but there was a strong bias that when things got stressful, when life situations changed, the women won’t handle it as well as a man—that a woman would turn away from her work.”

This has had a huge impact on women who are seeking careers in law. Women are forced to decide between having a career or a family first because they can both come at the same time. One woman who hid her pregnancy for 7 months was confronted with strong animosity by her employers and was labeled as being unprofessional for becoming pregnant.

Women lawyers who are partner in firms are accused of not being good moms because they are supposed to be completely dedicated to their work. It is a situation of you either can be a good lawyer or a good mom, never both, because that’s just too much and no one can do it.