{"id":137221,"date":"2025-11-20T17:53:58","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T01:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/11\/20\/does-our-profession-have-a-gender\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T17:53:58","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T01:53:58","slug":"does-our-profession-have-a-gender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/11\/20\/does-our-profession-have-a-gender\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Our Profession Have A Gender?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Do you think that the legal profession is too feminine? No, this is not a trick question. I am interested in your opinion because a conservative commentator, Helen Andrews, asserts that our\u00a0 profession is being feminized, to the profession\u2019s detriment.<\/p>\n

Andrews thinks all professions are being feminized, due to \u201cwokeness,\u201d but she leans most heavily on the legal profession. Cancel culture is female, she says, and it is what women do when there are enough of us in a given field. Everything you think of as wokeness involves prioritizing the feminine over the masculine<\/a>: empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition. Wokeness, says Andrews, is \u201csimply feminine patterns of behavior applied to institutions where women were few in number until recently.\u201d\u00a0Qualities that women see as positive, Andrews says are negative: women use collaboration and consensus to reach decisions, while men are not afraid to engage in open warfare.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Andrews, another failing of women is the inability to compartmentalize, something that men are very good at.\u00a0Wokeness, she says, is an inability to compartmentalize,\u00a0 pointing out, as an example,\u00a0the differences between men and women in dispute resolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When men are finished fighting and one side or the other has won, they are quicker to reconcile and to move forward in peace. Really? Not my experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t tell you about the sore loser male attorney who yelled at me because he hadn\u2019t received the settlement check yet and it wasn\u2019t due until a certain date. How many sore losers are men? Whereas, according to Andrews, women are slower to accept resolution. Who pouts more? How many stereotypes fit on the head of her theses?<\/p>\n

Andrews devotes much of her criticism to the legal profession and, as the older lawyers (of course men) retire and die, it will be the female majority in charge of the profession. Ha! Don\u2019t we wish. With the eviscerating of the DEI initiatives, the number of women in law leadership roles will probably be rolled back with the implicit or explicit blessing of the current administration.<\/p>\n

Andrews fears that the rule of law will not survive feminization. Why? She says that the rule of law can only survive in a world where precedent must be followed and appeals to sympathies must be ignored. What world is she living in? Precedent being followed? Please. She is right that appeals to doing the right thing are being ignored. How many Supreme Court cases do I need to cite? And as long as the Supreme Court is majority male and majority conservative, she has nothing to worry about.<\/p>\n

Way back when in dinosaur times (e.g., 1970) as more women started entering law school and then the profession, the thought was that women\u2019s impact would be \u201cminor,\u201d as Andrews puts it. But it\u2019s not, and many of us think that is cause for celebration, not denigration. A workplace where women have equal opportunity? What a concept! Contrary to Andrews\u2019 theory, many women have moved ahead based on merit, not on gender, just as many men have moved ahead punching their tickets issued by the \u201cgood old boys\u201d in the country club, the locker room or all those private clubs that excluded women until laws forced changes, to the dismay of many members.<\/p>\n

Feminization, to Andrews, is not something that has happened organically. It is, she says, social engineering. Is Andrews that naive to believe that discrimination against women in the workplace hasn\u2019t happened and won\u2019t continue to happen? That sexual discrimination has been erased from our society? I don\u2019t think that there is any woman lawyer in our profession or any other, who wouldn\u2019t be delighted if that was the case, but it\u2019s not, and it\u2019s a pipe dream. It\u2019s not wokeness, it\u2019s wake-up-ness.<\/p>\n

Men can be aggressive, and that\u2019s just peachy. Women who are aggressive are called by any number of unflattering names as they rise in the profession. A little discrimination there? Andrews calls for the restoration of what she calls \u201cfair rules.\u201d and contends\u00a0 that \u201cRight now we have a nominally meritocratic system in which it is illegal for women to lose. Let\u2019s make hiring meritocratic in substance and not just name, and we will see how it shakes out. Make it legal to have a masculine office culture again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, definitely, let\u2019s return to that. A masculine office culture full of bullying, yelling, and hollering, leering, touching,\u00a0and other boorish behavior.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Women lawyers have worked hard to achieve. Contrary to what Andrews believes, it\u2019s not the feminization of the profession, it\u2019s the humanization of it.\u00a0She admits she is not a lawyer, so her opinions are observational, not participatory. Go ahead, please walk a mile in my lawyer shoes of almost 50 years (and I am not even including the preceding three years of law school). I am a size 7B.<\/p>\n

\n

Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She\u2019s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact \u2014 it\u2019s not always civil. You can reach her by email at\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>oldladylawyer@gmail.com<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Does Our Profession Have A Gender?<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Do you think that the legal profession is too feminine? No, this is not a trick question. I am interested in your opinion because a conservative commentator, Helen Andrews, asserts that our\u00a0 profession is being feminized, to the profession\u2019s detriment.<\/p>\n

Andrews thinks all professions are being feminized, due to \u201cwokeness,\u201d but she leans most heavily on the legal profession. Cancel culture is female, she says, and it is what women do when there are enough of us in a given field. Everything you think of as wokeness involves prioritizing the feminine over the masculine<\/a>: empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition. Wokeness, says Andrews, is \u201csimply feminine patterns of behavior applied to institutions where women were few in number until recently.\u201d\u00a0Qualities that women see as positive, Andrews says are negative: women use collaboration and consensus to reach decisions, while men are not afraid to engage in open warfare.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Andrews, another failing of women is the inability to compartmentalize, something that men are very good at.\u00a0Wokeness, she says, is an inability to compartmentalize,\u00a0 pointing out, as an example,\u00a0the differences between men and women in dispute resolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When men are finished fighting and one side or the other has won, they are quicker to reconcile and to move forward in peace. Really? Not my experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t tell you about the sore loser male attorney who yelled at me because he hadn\u2019t received the settlement check yet and it wasn\u2019t due until a certain date. How many sore losers are men? Whereas, according to Andrews, women are slower to accept resolution. Who pouts more? How many stereotypes fit on the head of her theses?<\/p>\n

Andrews devotes much of her criticism to the legal profession and, as the older lawyers (of course men) retire and die, it will be the female majority in charge of the profession. Ha! Don\u2019t we wish. With the eviscerating of the DEI initiatives, the number of women in law leadership roles will probably be rolled back with the implicit or explicit blessing of the current administration.<\/p>\n

Andrews fears that the rule of law will not survive feminization. Why? She says that the rule of law can only survive in a world where precedent must be followed and appeals to sympathies must be ignored. What world is she living in? Precedent being followed? Please. She is right that appeals to doing the right thing are being ignored. How many Supreme Court cases do I need to cite? And as long as the Supreme Court is majority male and majority conservative, she has nothing to worry about.<\/p>\n

Way back when in dinosaur times (e.g., 1970) as more women started entering law school and then the profession, the thought was that women\u2019s impact would be \u201cminor,\u201d as Andrews puts it. But it\u2019s not, and many of us think that is cause for celebration, not denigration. A workplace where women have equal opportunity? What a concept! Contrary to Andrews\u2019 theory, many women have moved ahead based on merit, not on gender, just as many men have moved ahead punching their tickets issued by the \u201cgood old boys\u201d in the country club, the locker room or all those private clubs that excluded women until laws forced changes, to the dismay of many members.<\/p>\n

Feminization, to Andrews, is not something that has happened organically. It is, she says, social engineering. Is Andrews that naive to believe that discrimination against women in the workplace hasn\u2019t happened and won\u2019t continue to happen? That sexual discrimination has been erased from our society? I don\u2019t think that there is any woman lawyer in our profession or any other, who wouldn\u2019t be delighted if that was the case, but it\u2019s not, and it\u2019s a pipe dream. It\u2019s not wokeness, it\u2019s wake-up-ness.<\/p>\n

Men can be aggressive, and that\u2019s just peachy. Women who are aggressive are called by any number of unflattering names as they rise in the profession. A little discrimination there? Andrews calls for the restoration of what she calls \u201cfair rules.\u201d and contends\u00a0 that \u201cRight now we have a nominally meritocratic system in which it is illegal for women to lose. Let\u2019s make hiring meritocratic in substance and not just name, and we will see how it shakes out. Make it legal to have a masculine office culture again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, definitely, let\u2019s return to that. A masculine office culture full of bullying, yelling, and hollering, leering, touching,\u00a0and other boorish behavior.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Women lawyers have worked hard to achieve. Contrary to what Andrews believes, it\u2019s not the feminization of the profession, it\u2019s the humanization of it.\u00a0She admits she is not a lawyer, so her opinions are observational, not participatory. Go ahead, please walk a mile in my lawyer shoes of almost 50 years (and I am not even including the preceding three years of law school). I am a size 7B.<\/p>\n

\n

Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She\u2019s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact \u2014 it\u2019s not always civil. You can reach her by email at\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>oldladylawyer@gmail.com<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Does Our Profession Have A Gender?<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you think that the legal profession is too feminine? No, this is not a trick question. I am interested in your opinion because a conservative commentator, Helen Andrews, asserts that our\u00a0 profession is being feminized, to the profession\u2019s detriment. Andrews thinks all professions are being feminized, due to \u201cwokeness,\u201d but she leans most heavily […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":137222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-1580936028-scaled-vG9ebo.jpg?fit=2560%2C1752&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}