The Double-Binded Situation of Even Women Lawyers

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From Newsweek:

Of some 700 female lawyers surveyed, more than half of equity partners and two-thirds of income and minority partners say they are dissatisfied with the way compensation was determined at their firms—compared to nearly three-quarters of men who reported high levels of satisfaction with those systems, according to an earlier study. Complaints include a lack of diversity within compensation committees, a lack of wage transparency, and too much weight given to factors such as billable hours and too little to institutional investments like developing a firm’s human capital and nurturing young associates.

Female lawyers also reported being stymied by the “double bind,” saying that for women it’s virtually impossible to be simultaneously respected and well-liked. “You must engage in self-promotion but you’re penalized for doing so if you’re a woman,” says Joan Williams, a professor at UC’s Hastings College of the Law and an author of the report. But Williams says that she was perhaps most surprised by the fact that the survey respondents were so incensed by their experiences at work, which was made clear through comments they submitted online. “The anger comes from the fact that they see these patterns of gender bias, double standards, and double binds in their everyday lives.”

The Situation of the Law School Classroom – Abstract

Robert Chang and Adrienne Davis have posted their interesting article, “Making Up is Hard to Do: Race/Gender/Sexual Orientation in the Law School Classroom” (forthcoming Harvard Journal of Law and Gender (2009)) on SSRN.  Here’s the abstract.

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This exchange of letters picks up where Professors Adrienne Davis and Robert Chang left off in an earlier exchange that examined who speaks, who is allowed to speak, and what is remembered. Here, Professors Davis and Chang explore the dynamics of race, gender, and sexual orientation in the law school classroom. They compare the experiences of African American women and Asian American men in trying to perform as law professors, considering how makeup and other gender tools simultaneously assist and hinder such performances. Their exchange examines the possibility of bias that complicates the use of student evaluations in assessing teaching effectiveness. It hypothesizes that the mechanism by which this bias manifests itself is a variant of stereotype threat, one that they call projected stereotype threat, where stereotypes of incompetence or accent are projected onto the bodies of teachers marked by difference. They examine how institutions respond or, as is more typically the case, fail to respond to these problems. They conclude with some suggestions for change, asserting that if institutions want to pay more than lip service to the goal of diversity, the success and employment conditions of women and minorities will improve only through the hiring of more women and minorities and by addressing directly the issue of bias to educate students about bias and its discriminatory effects on instructors whose bodies are marked by perceived differences and how such bias interferes with their learning.

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To read a sample of related Situationist posts, see “Banning Laptops in the Classroom – Abstract,” “The Situational Benefits of Outsiders,” and “Some Situational Sources and Consequences of Diversity.”

The Situation of Human Trafficking – Abstract

Jonathan Todres has recently posted a fascinating article, titled “Law, Otherness, and Human Trafficking” (49 Santa Clara Law Review 605-672 (2009) on SSRN. Here’s the abstract.

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Despite concerted efforts to combat human trafficking, the trade in persons persists and, in fact, continues to grow. This article suggests that a central reason for the limited success in preventing human trafficking is the dominant conception of the problem, which forms the basis for law developed to combat human trafficking. Specifically, the author argues that “otherness” is a root cause of both inaction and the selective nature of responses to the abusive practice of human trafficking. Othering operates across multiple dimensions, including race, gender, ethnicity, class, caste, culture, and geography, to reinforce a conception of a virtuous “Self” and a devalued “Other.” This article exposes how this Self/Other dichotomy shapes the phenomenon of human trafficking, driving demand for trafficked persons, influencing perceptions of the problem, and constraining legal initiatives to end the abuse. By examining human trafficking through an otherness-aware framework, this article aims to elucidate a deeper understanding of human trafficking and offer a prescription for reducing the adverse effects of otherness on both efforts to combat human trafficking and the individuals that now suffer such abuses.

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You can download the article for free here.  For a sample of related Situationist posts, see “The Situational Effect of Groups,” “The Situational Benefits of Outsiders,” “Racism Meets Groupism and Teamism,” “‘Us’ and ‘Them,’” “Team-Interested Decision Making,” “Some (Interior) Situational Sources War – Part I,” and “March Madness.”

Animated Gender Stereotypes

[via Sociological Images]