Still Needing a Room of Our Own?

Several years ago, two new publications premiered aimed at women in the legal professions. One was the wittily named, "Sue Magazine," edited by Chere Estrin. The second was "Women Legal," an off-shoot of the more Euro-focused Managing Partner Magazine. Our firm subscribed to both, as I'm sure many did, and I know our female lawyers enjoyed reading the early issues.

I struggle to keep up with my non-essential reading (and my essential reading, and my bed time reading, and my children's bed time stories . . .), and Sue and Women Legal fell by the wayside. Recently, I learned that both have folded. My first reaction to this news was a slight sadness, seasoned with the happier thought that most likely these magazines failed because their parochial focus had become an anachronism by their late '00s launch.

A "Google" search to discover their fate gave me no answers.

(Full disclosure, "sue magazine" is an entertaining search if you like reading about kate-middleton-nude-photo-gate. Aand who doesn't? . . . )

But the on-topic results did somewhat temper my initial upbeat assessment. To the best of my googling ability, one of the last cyber traces of Sue, is the following cynical exchange, from "Overlawyered.com":

"Sue Magazine, for women in litigation" by WALTER OLSON on NOVEMBER 3, 2008

We didn’t make this up. Really, we didn’t. Well-known Loyola lawprof Laurie Levenson is listed among those involved. . . . 

More: AmLaw Litigation Daily suggests some spinoffs, including 'Pat: For Women in Sexual Harassment Litigation.'"

Really?! Heavy sigh . . .

Cooperstown: Who's on First?

I'm in Cooperstown for two weeks with my baseball playing 12-year old, participating in a summer ritual familiar to serious baseball parents throughout the country. Every summer, Cooperstown Dreamspark runs weekly tournaments at a facility so stunningly perfect in baseball terms that it lives up to its own advertising as the Little Major Leagues.

In most respects, my baseball adventure is identical to that of the 15,000 other baseball families who come here each year. We will win impossible games on walk off home runs by the small kid who has never hit one before, or we will be mercied, maybe even by teams we should have beaten. We will learn about baseball, and we will learn about character. We will take photographs and buy T-shirts. But in one way, my experience is different.

You see, my 12-year old ball player is a girl. And even at Cooperstown Dreamspark, where "dreams come true," they don't sell a little brother's T-shirt that says, "I have no life, my SISTER plays baseball."

At Cooperstown last week, there were 1400 boys competing, and 6 girls. In America, girls don't play baseball. Some of this is by choice; some of it is because they are refused the opportunity by schools which still prohibit girls from participating in America's pasttime.

In my particular corner of the law, I am still often the only woman. I am accustomed to walking into large conference rooms or courtrooms, and finding I am alone in a group of 40 men. I have never been uncomfortable. In truth, I rather like it. But I'm not 12 and still growing into my adult self, and while I may meet the occasional old-timer who is a little confused by me, no one, absolutely no one, ever tells me I can't do what I'm doing.

My daughter's world is tougher than mine, perhaps more like the women entering the legal world in the '60's and '70's, but the rules are the same. And they are, I think, a good reminder that while it may be easier now for women in law than it was thirty years ago, and while we may bend these rules more now than ever before, they still apply and we break them at our peril.

Here are some things my daughter--let's call her Ursa--has already had to learn.

To succeed as a girl in a boy's game:

• It is not enough to be good. You have to be better. You may have to be the best.

Ursa is a very good player, but she is not the best. She is good enough to make every team she tries out for, but she is not so good that they HAVE to have her. Often, that alone makes all the difference. They will not change rules for her (e.g., at a school that does not allow girls to play), and she depends on having "enlightened" coaches who see only a ballplayer, not a ballplayer with a ponytail.

• Walk like a boy. Talk like a boy.

As a female in a male world, it's important to fit in and not call attention to one's femaleness. In my world, that requires a certain comfort level with off-color jokes and sports banter.

For Ursa, it is the same. She loves her Cooperstown team because they accept her completely. The proof? They don't stop being crude 12-year old boys when she enters a room. And when Ursa takes the field (and no where else), she lopes along in the same rangy saunter of her team mates, shoulders slouched, head bobbing. If it weren't for the ponytail, you'd never know she is a girl.

I have met many girl ballplayers in the last few years. Off the field, some are girly, some are not, like any collection of adolescent girls. But on the field, they are all the same. They all walk like boys. Very young, they realized this was their ticket to admission into the clubhouse.

• No short shorts.

Ursa is lucky enough to play very occasionally on a national all-girls exhibition team as well as her usual, local boys' teams. The girls' team competes against boys at big tournaments (including Cooperstown), and at such tournaments, her coach has only one piece of advice that Ursa never gets from her other coaches:

"No short shorts. We want to be remembered for our play on the field; not how we dressed off the field."

Women lawyers have much more freedom in dress now than when I entered the profession, but the fact remains. If you want to be sure you are taken seriously, be remembered for your play on the field, not the cut of your blouse.

____________

Each fall, I take Ursa to tryouts for her spring and summer teams. Some of those teams are highly competitive, and the tryouts are huge. Ursa is always the only girl. I cannot describe the feeling of 200 pairs of male eyes simultaneously pretending not to notice my girl. But I can relay the whispered comments: "Get a load of that pony tail!" "Oh, this is going to be rich."

Some how, Ursa finds the courage to close her ears, time and again, and she saunters to the practice mound, seemingly oblivious.

She looks in. She sets. She deals.

And the snickers are no more: "Hey, that girl can throw!"

That 12-year old is my hero. After all, you can learn a lot from a kid.

For girls' baseball opportunities and to learn more about girls' baseball, visit http://www.baseballforall.com/ and http://www.girlsplaybaseball.org/.

The Whole Cloth: Threads of Affirmative Action

Our law firm diversity web page includes "profiles" of diverse attorneys in the firm. Recently, the new diversity coordinator and marketing manager asked me if I would like to be profiled. Certainly, this offer was intended as a compliment and a way to honor my past contributions as diversity coordinator, but on reflection, I declined.

I say, "on reflection," to make clear that I did not decline out of continuing pique over the firm's general failure to compensate me appropriately for my contributions when I was the firm diversity coordinator. And I did not decline because I am opposed to the whole idea of the profiles. To the contrary, I like them. They were my idea, and they do celebrate and honor our diverse attorneys, both for their success and for their difference.

And for all those reasons, I felt I should accept, or as it felt to me, acquiesce. But the truth is, when it comes to my own career, I continue to be uncomfortable with being singled out or recognized as diverse. I continue to feel that the world is teaming with people just waiting to say, "Aha, you see. She is only a senior partner because they needed a woman."

It's silly. Really silly, on so many levels.

First, I have no doubt that  my successes are real and earned, and I have no doubt that the people who know me, including my partners and my clients, know that. So why am I so insecure?

Second, there is no question I'm female. It's not a secret. Everyone who meets me figures that out in the first nanosecond. And I like being female. So who am I kidding?

Third, when I'm honest with myself, part of my success is certainly because I'm female. Not in the affirmative action, her-gender-is-her-identity, give-her-something-because-she's-diverse sense many of us fear, but because my femaleness is part of the essence of me, and it cannot be teased out. It is part of my success, and part of my failure, sometimes it is a cause of each, sometimes not, but always it is present.

And this knowledge, that our diversity characteristics are threads that provide structure or color to the fabric of ourselves is one of the best aspects of modern evolving diversity culture. In my case, there is a female aspect to the way I work, and collaborate, and network, and carry myself, and yes, even flirt, that enhances and is part of my professional success. I haven't succeeded BECAUSE I'm a woman, but being a woman is part of my success because it's part of me.

So what am I afraid of? I'm afraid of the past, and I can't quite manage to accept that it is past. I still worry that being recognized for being female overstates that one thread of who I am and by making it the whole cloth, undermines the fact of my success on the merits.

I'm afraid that if they pull out that one thread, the entire cloth unravels.

Am I wrong?