Just when I think things are getting so much better for women lawyers, I experience something that makes me doubt that progress again.
That happened earlier this week when I read a story about a woman named Priscilla Wheeler, a law student in the early 1970’s at UC Hastings. The article interested me because Ms. Wheeler started law school only a few years before I did, and we had similar experiences at our law schools. However, there was one very big difference. Priscilla Wheeler had a toddler, and I did not. That undoubtedly made it much more challenging for her.
The article included information about a column Ms. Wheeler wrote for the Hastings Law News student newspaper titled Wonder Woman Revisited/Or Not Everyone Can Throw a Golden Lasso. Ms. Wheeler wrote that “many women are tired of having to be superwoman in order to just be considered in the running” and “Perhaps a better symbol for feminism [than Wonder Woman] would be the earthy, less than perfect Ms. Caucus of Doonesbury fame. She’s a woman and feminist; one who has made mistakes and knows it. She will make more mistakes and she knows that too. … Ms. Caucus is a very human type person.”
Ms. Wheeler’s column also included a recitation of gender obstacles she faced in law school , which included unfair treatment by male Moot Court judges. It brought back my memories of such a Moot Court judge admonishing me because he could smell my perfume from the bench — just before announcing that my partner and I had won the competition!
Fortunately, that kind of overt gender discrimination is so much less common in law school and law practice today. However, Ms. Wheeler’s experience reminds us that women in general, women lawyers included, are too often still required to meet a higher bar.
That reality rings true especially as we witness another woman vying to be President of the United States. No matter what your politics are, that reality must be clear when some commentators hold her to a higher bar for no other reason than that she is female. That is unfortunate indeed.
But what is not unfortunate is the way Kamala Harris meets the challenge. Everything about her says “bring it on” because she knows she can handle it. And, like Doonesbury’s Ms. Caucus, she also knows and demonstrates that she is not infallible because she is very human. And it is that humanity that drives her.
And that is the takeaway for all women lawyers. The road may be rougher than we would like, but we can handle it! And, we can, and will, work hard to make it better.
