La Belle Vie

it's tough being a girl...

This article at the Economist is really interesting. Through work at NAWL i'm discovering that this is true for the legal profession as well. We're hosting a "General Counsel Institute" in New York in November to try and educate women who work in corporate legal departments on how to rise to the top, because apparently there's a lack of women in lead counsel positions at major firms. And the upcoming issue of our journal is all about career advancement, and i was reading in one of the articles about how one of the things that holds young female law firm associates back is that male partners are reluctant to form the same kind of informal mentoring relationships with them that they would with young male associates, because of concern over perceptions or accusations of impropriety or sexual harassment. This all makes me sad. But i think it'll get better. I think women of each subsequent generation get more and more comfortable "playing with the boys," if you will, and less and less bound to prescribed gender roles. Of course, as Laura pointed out in a similar conversation we were having about female directors of non-profits, there's still going to be a substantial number of women who choose to sacrifice their careers for their family. But i still believe that society is evolving in such a way to make that choice a) less common and b) less necessary.

and to bring up another requirement that society imposes on women, apparently all of my getting up early to exercise may be counter-productive. Grrr...you just can't win.

or can you? At least we're finding ways to deal with hangovers. Now if only they could come up with an after cure instead of a before cure.

By the way, the last two clips were courtesy of the fact that i've spent HOURS looking at old news articles about UofC people to make sure that we've associated them with the right people on our website. And i'm getting back to it now. Sigh.

love y'all

posted by Monica @ 12:31 PM