Discrimination Against Women in the Professions

More than thirty-five years after the enactment of Title VII, one would not expect discrimination against women in the professions to continue as a serious workplace problem. Early in the nineteenth century, law school generally excluded two groups of applicants – felons and females. Among many reason advanced for the rejection of women ‘were the dangers of unchaperoned  intellectual intercourse in the libraries, and the diversion of male attention in the classroom’. 

Even late in century, women were still barred from practicing law in many states. As one judge pontificated while endeavoring to justify his decision to deny the admission of female candidates to the Wisconsin Bar, “ The peculiar qualities of womanhood, its gentle graces, its quick sensibility, its tender susceptibility,” were surely not qualification for ‘forensic strife’.

Women Discrimination Case :-

As late as the middle of the twentieth century, female attorneys were openly discriminated against. As noted earlier, when Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor graduated near the top of her Stanford Law School class, the only offer of employment she received was for the position of legal secretary.

Still, only 9 percent of top corporate legal position are filled by women. Only 16 percent of corporate legal departments of between fifty-one and one hundred lawyers are directed by women, while more than one-half of the legal departments with twenty-five and fewer lawyers are headed are headed by females.

The legal profession has its own glass ceiling. Myriad factors have led to its continued existence, but one appears to stand out : Young male attorneys have always been encouraged to focus on career development, while female professions are expected to focus on home and family, as well as on their careers. Thus, the law firm role of the male lawyer differs significantly from that of the female attorney, and the contribution to the firm made by the single focused male lawyer carries the greater value. Thus, more law firm partnerships go to men than to women.