The Happy Feminist

PATHOLOGICAL FATHERLY PROTECTIVENESS

Many of my colleagues, most of them male, seem to be reproducing.  I enjoy absorbing by osmosis the happiness and excitement of the expectant fathers.  I enjoy making helpful suggestions as to baby names, although no one seems to like my suggestions. (What's wrong with Herbert, Hermione, Oscar or Bertha anyway?)  And, of course, it's fun to meet the babies once they arrive or look at their pictures. 

What I find irritating however is all the lame joking when a girl baby arrives on the scene.  The fathers with baby girls joke about not ever letting them date or not ever letting them out of the house.  The fathers with boys joke that they are relieved because they would be too worried all the time if they had a daughter.  I once challenged a good friend of mine, the father of a bouncing baby boy, when he made such a statement.  He gave me a lot of nonsense about how girls are more vulnerable to rape and pregnancy, and then made more jokes about how, if he does ever have a daughter, she's never leaving the house until she's thirty. 

Of course, on one level all of this is just harmless, light hearted water cooler banter.  On another level, however, it reflects a totally irrational anxiety about SEX, and women and girls being sullied by SEX, and men on some level or another equating women and girls with SEX. 

Sure, my friend tried to put a veneer of rationality over this weird view of daughters, but it really makes no sense. First, I think it's baloney and that this fatherly overprotectiveness isn't quite so well thought out as all that.  Second, if there is a danger that our daughters might get raped or pregnant, there is a corresponding danger that our sons might be doing the raping and the impregnating.  While the burdens of rape and pregnancy certainly weigh more heavily on the girl or woman, it would also be pretty awful if your son raped someone or became a teenaged father.  Thirdly, our sons are probably in far more danger than our daughters when they go out into the world.  Middle school and high school boys are far more likely than girls to engage in risky behaviors and more likely to engage in multiple risky behaviors, like substance abuse, fighting, carrying illegal weapons, or attempting suicide according to this study by the Urban Institute (see pages 4 and 5).  And, according to this article, three out of every four suicides are men and two out of every three motor vehicle fatalities are men (many of them in single vehicle accidents in which the car ran off the road into an object like a tree).  When you hear about a drunken college student falling off the roof of a building or a daredevil kid dying after trying some dangerous stunt, don't you automatically assume it was a boy?  And doesn't your assumption usually turn out to be correct?  And don't forget that boys and men are statistically more likely to be assaulted than girls and women.  You don't generally hear about women getting beaten up in bar fights, nor are women as likely to get mugged.

Yet it's our daughters, not our sons, we get all freaked out about. The only reason for this double standard is our twisted discomfort with women's sexual agency.  Cringe-inducing banter at the water cooler is only the tip of the iceberg as far as the evil consequences of this double standard. I think to be fair to our children of both sexes we (and by we, I especially mean you fathers out there) need to show more respect for our daughters' agency and ability to fend for themselves, and we also need to show a bit more concern for our sons and what they are doing and feeling.  Parental protectiveness of children is surely a good thing if sensibly applied, but this nonsensical double standard doesn't help anyone. 

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More reading on this topic:

1)  Amanda at Pandagon exposes this pathological fatherly protectiveness in this post when she deconstructs the following excerpt from an article at Renew America:

A chief aspect of civilization is the propagation of a society through its families and social customs. Modern western civilizations have always been held apart from third world nations and past monarchist or despotic societies because of the special standing that their girl children have had. Particularly the protective status that our little girls are accorded is one of the civilizing factors that separates us from the more brutal, uncaring societies where girls are treated as mere playthings, slaves or, worse yet, a curse on a family.

For many generations we have considered our girls as something to protect, to be kept pure and free of the ravages of a hard life until they are ready to enter into the world properly prepared. “Daddy’s little girl” is placed on a pedestal and we men joke of sending our little girls to a convent to keep them from those predatory boyfriends. After all, we were ourselves once young men full of raging hormones and we know exactly what those boys want with our little girls. Immediately thoughts of this send men in our society into protector mode.

We want to be sure that our girls are not mistreated, that they have loving husbands who will provide for them. And when the time comes for them to have children of their own, we Fathers want to be sure that our little girls will be comfortable and safe to raise theirs, as they ought.

Our cave man urges rise to the side of our daughters.

Or as Amanda puts it:

To summarize: The best way for men to avoid acting like men in less advanced countries is to be cavemen, since nothing says not primitive like being primitive. And the best way to avoid treating your daughter like a piece of property is to treat her like a piece of fairly expensive property. And the best way to protect girls from perverted men who can’t think of women as full human beings is to put those same kind of men in charge of them. And there’s nothing gross about a man who says, “I know what those perverts are thinking about my daughter, because I’ve had the same thoughts.”

With that kind of sharp thinking on its side, it’s a wonder the patriarchy managed to last a week, much less millenia.

p>2)  A while back, also in a Pandagon thread, there was some interesting conversation (started by me admittedly) regarding those old hackneyed jokes about the protective father who puts the fear of God into his daughter's boyfriend to ensure that daughter's boyfriend doesn't try any funny business with his little girl.  These jokes always drive me bananas for the reasons I explained in my comments.  The valiant Mythago also waded into battle on this one and, as always, she did a bang up job. 

COLLIES AND SPRINGTIME

I only have a few blogging minutes available today, so I am going to cheat and rely on quotation blogging a day early (see previous post) and a collie photo. 

I have been out and about this morning enjoying the glorious springtime weather and then I was planted for a while in front of my TV set catching up on each day's installment of "The Daily Show" from the last two weeks.  (If I weren't happily married, I think I would be in love with Jon Stewart.) Next we're off to our nephew's baseball game (yes, I am basically a soccer aunt and spend quite a bit of my spare time at little kid sporting events) and then the mandatory parental dinner dedicated to the celebration of my birthday and full analysis of my biological clock (as well as, per the reader suggestions below, my father's prostate and possible Viagra usage).

I hope we can race home in time to watch one of the DVDs my husband got me.  He has showered me with DVDs-- months of viewing pleasure to look forward to -- including, at long last, the Colin Firth version of Pride & Prejudice, which I have never seen.  I guess husband got the hint after all the carrying on I did last week about Mr. Darcy. 

While I can't imagine any of this is even remotely interesting to anyone, I hope this collie photo will keep you coming back.  I originally posted this pic at Scheherazade's site for her on-line birthday party, which Happy Feminist readers Richard Ames and chipmunk also attended.  That's me with my parents' collie; we have a very close relationship because I was her primary caretaker for several weeks when she was a puppy.  You can click on the photo to enlarge.

SATURDAY QUOTATION BLOGGING: HARSH BUT THOUGHT PROVOKING

Even then, as long as the temptations of convenience exist -- in the economic inequality that favors certain individuals and the recognized right of woman to sell herself to one of these privileged men -- she will need to make a greater moral effort than would a man in choosing the road of independence.  It has not been sufficiently realized that the temptation is also an obstacle and even one of the most dangerous.

-- Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

MORE UNFEMINIST ITALIAN FAMILY HISTORY

My grandfather's parents were "Beatrice" and "Giuseppe."  The grew up together in southern Italy in the 1880s and 1890s.  When they were children, they used to go to school at the same time, although to different schools.  On the way to school, Giuseppe used to weave in and out of the tiny side streets and then pop out in front of Beatrice to tease her.  Sometimes he would go to her house with his little white dog (with bells on the collar) to try to catch a glimpse of her at the window.  Sometimes he would go to her window with a few friends to try to serenade her, but her brothers would go to the upper windows and throw water on them. 

When they became teenagers, Giuseppe's aunt would go from house to house doing women's hair.  When Giuseppe's aunt went to Beatrice's house, she would bring Beatrice messages from Giuseppe.  At the time Giuseppe was an apprentice tailor.  Beatrice spent a lot of time weaving cloth to sell in order to fund her dowry. 

One day, Giuseppe's father (a jeweler) came to call on Beatrice's father.  Beatrice was terribly excited at the possibility that they might discuss her romance with Giuseppe. She listened to their conversation from behind the door.  To her immense frustration, all they talked about was bird hunting.  Just as he was leaving, however, Giuseppe's father asked if Giuseppe could have permission to call on Beatrice.  Beatrice's father agreed.

Giuseppe duly called on Beatrice on a number of occasions, but he and Beatrice hardly spoke to each other at all during these visits.  She just sat by the fire and knit, while he talked to her parents.  Eventually, Giuseppe and Beatrice married in 1900.  In 1901, they became proud parents of my grandfather, and immigrated to the United States the same year. 

Beatrice was raised to take care of the men-folk and to function as a second mother to her rather wild brothers.  Throughout her childhood and adolescence, she would knit a woolen sock every night before she went to bed, because the boys wore them out so fast.  Beatrice lived until 1966 and enjoyed a very close relationship with my father, who was her oldest grandson.  My father recalls that his grandmother felt very strongly that the males in the family should be waited on.  If my father were ever going to bring a chair from the kitchen to the dining room for example, his grandmother would make him stop and would tell one of his aunts to do it instead.  My father was never to pick up his plate or carry any platters, but rather was expected to allow his aunts and female cousins to serve him and the other males.  A typical old-world grandma, Beatrice was very hard on her daughters while coddling her son and grandsons.  Family wisdom has it that the reason two of my great-aunts never married was that Beatrice insisted that they stay with her to take care of her in her old age. 

In 1929, Beatrice's oldest son, my grandfather, married my grandmother, a progressive, birth-control-loving, Jewish feminist.  I can't imagine that there was much love lost between my grandmother and my great-grandmother.  Apparently Beatrice's "my son can do no wrong" mentality won out, and my unconventional grandmother was tolerated at family gatherings.

PICTURE IT. SICILY. 1865.

Actually the Italian side of my family is not from Sicily, but I couldn't resist "The Golden Girls" reference as a way to introduce this family history post.  My whole life my father has been researching, writing and polishing a massive Italian family history.  I suppose it is not surprising that there was no feminist consciousness among my Italian forbears of the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  The tale of my grandfather's grandparents' "courtship" in southern Italy in 1865 is a bit rough:

The family story is that my tall and handsome Great-great-grandfather ("Luigi") was 28 years old when he fell in love with a tiny 14 year old girl who was to become my Great-great-grandmother ("Marianna").  (My elderly relatives all attribute my small bones and freakishly small hands to Marianna's genetic legacy.)  When Marianna's parents died, her older sisters had already been married off, but she was too young so she was placed in a convent orphanage.  (She was Catholic unlike my paternal line.)  The nuns taught her needlework and she became immensely proficient at embroidery, silk spinning, and crocheting. 

Marianna often sat in the convent garden and Luigi happened to see her on a number of occasions when he would walk by.  He fell in love with her on sight.  Since Marianna was 14, and too young to be married, Luigi rode a horse into the building where she was sewing one day and abducted her.  He took her off to another town and married her that night.  Even though she was so young, he knew that once they were married, the priests and nuns would not annul the marriage. 

Marianna and Luigi were my grandfather's grandparents.  I heard this story from my grandfather when I was growing up.  He heard it from his parents and from Marianna and Luigi themselves (they died in 1936 and 1915 respectively).  Family tradition is unclear as to whether Marianna and Luigi had ever talked before he abducted her.  It is also unclear as to whether Marianna consented to the abduction. I guess no one thought that those were important questions to ask! I like to think that it was assumed that she consented to the abduction. 

AGING ANECDOTE - UPDATED

So a couple years ago, I am getting myself coffee in the lunchroom at my old firm and two of the brand new women attorneys, both about 25 years old, are having a conversation right next to the coffee machine.  Vibrant and Glowing Young Woman Attorney Number One is complaining to Vibrant and Glowing Young Woman Attorney Number Two that her fiance's sister wants to be a bridesmaid at her wedding. 

"I just don't understand why you would even want to be a bridesmaid at that age.  Bridesmaids are supposed to be dewey and young and vibrant and glowing."

I, of course, am envisioning fiance's sister as some grandmotherly person, but then Vibrant and Glowing Young Woman Attorney Number One turns to me and says, "Happy, you're about the same age as fiance's sister.  Wouldn't you feel kind of silly being a bridesmaid?"

No, actually.  And I may not be dewey and young but I'm glad I'm old enough to actually think things through before I open my big yap. 

UPDATE:  I am now regretting having put this up because I don't want to seem as though I am supporting a stereotype of women being "catty--" a stereotype that has never held true in my experience.  I think the other lawyer's comment was thoughtless rather than malicious.  At the time I said, "Gee, thanks," and we all laughed.  I did think it was significant and disturbing that she seemed to buy into all sorts of sexist beliefs about youth and age, and that she was perhaps overly caught up in making her wedding "just so."

ENTERING MY PRIME?

So turning 35 is a strange thing.  Intellectually, I know that I am supposed to be crying into my pillow about my wrinkles and my biological clock.  I can hardly believe that I am old enough to have a fifteen year old child, or that I am now well past the age considered of optimal sexual attractiveness in women, or that there are these adults around who are a whole generation younger than I am and who are too young to remember major things I remember like the Iran hostage crisis.  These things should be upsetting to me.

Emotionally, though, I still like the feeling of getting older.  All my life I have enjoyed getting older.  I remember on my tenth birthday reflecting that I was so happy that I was old enough to understand how the world works.  I had hated that feeling of helplessness and confusion when I was a very young child when I didn’t know how to read and didn’t know how to tell time and didn’t understand what the grown-ups were talking about.  And all through adolescence and college and my twenties, I had the feeling more and more every year of understanding the world a little better and being more in control and in charge of my own destiny.  And even now, well into my thirties, I still am conscious of and take pleasure in the fact that I am an adult and that because I am an adult, I know things and I can do things.  Every year, in fact, I feel a little more capable and a little more knowledgeable.

Every year, I also feel as though I am taken a little more seriously by others.  Being respected by others has always been huge for me.  The more I am viewed as an experienced professional rather than a young ‘un (and view myself that way), the happier I am.

In fact, I am now fully trusted by my own society to do virtually anything.  Not only am I old enough to drive and vote and get married and rent a car, but I am now -- as of this birthday -- finally old enough to become President of the United States.

Part of me exults -- genuinely exults -- in the fact that for the next fifteen years to twenty years, I will be in what’s considered “my prime,” that age when I am supposed to be at the height of my power and productivity both out in the world and on the home front.   Younger people are still figuring things out, and older people are cutting back but those of us born between 1956 and 1971 are where it’s at.  I can see it in all my friends and in the people I know.  I can see it in the way Generation X is coming into its own and influencing the culture, and in the fact that I “get” what’s current in a way my parents really don’t. (Of course, my parents are really un-hip so maybe they're not a good example.)

Of course, there is pressure in being in one’s “prime.”  (What if this isn’t what I am supposed to be doing?  Is this all there is? What if I screw everything up?  What happens when my parents start to get old and sick? What if I realize when I am an old lady that I spent all my time on all the wrong things? And can I really maintain all this hard work for another 30 years?)  But the pressure feels good and vital and motivating in a way that I didn’t feel at 25 when life just seemed to stretch ahead endlessly.

And, of course, I don’t at all mean to imply that life ends at 50 or 55.  I hope to be active and with it and doing things for decades beyond 50.  But there is this sense at 35 that I am in the thick of things, and also a sense of being powerful enough to handle it (even with all sorts of doubts and worries and self-castigation that I don’t usually share on this blog).

It’s also kind of interesting to actually have some years under my belt.  My childhood in the seventies seems really dated now.  It’s weird to think that I remember things that now perhaps qualify as “historical,” like the U.S. Bicentennial or waiting in gas lines during the oil crisis or seeing Star Wars when it first came out.

I don’t mean to imply that the down side doesn’t exist.  It was easy to deny the subtle changes in my appearance between 22 and 28.  The differences between 22 and 35 are a bit more striking.  Every once in a while, I’ll catch a glimpse myself in a mirror and think, “Oh man, what HAPPENED?!?”  Also my 22-year old self could beat the crap out of my woefully out of shape 35-year old self, and certainly lap her numerous times in any track race.   But I remind myself that my physical aging doesn’t matter that much since I am not especially concerned about having kids nor am I in a youth-oriented profession.

The worst part is probably going to be this Saturday’s mandatory celebratory dinner with my parents.  My father is quite likely to bellow something about my biological clock, which he assumes is an all-consuming fixation for me.  Anyone want to go in my place?

THE PERFECT FEMINIST ROMANTIC HERO -- UPDATED

I am disturbed by this old editorial in the Guardian, which I found when I was writing my last post on Austen.  Cherry Potter expresses concern that Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice remains straight women's "favourite fictional romantic icon." As she notes, he is the character 1,900 women across the generations most want to date, according to a recent poll by the Orange Prize for Fiction. Potter believes this predilection for Mr. Darcy, especially among "educated literary feminist women," reflects confusion about what women really want.  But Potter -- like Elizabeth Benet herself -- has utterly misread Mr. Darcy, assuming that he is the "epitome of the dominant patriarchal male," and that upon marriage he will turn out to be "rigid, dominating and controlling."

I myself sighed quite a few yearning sighs over Mr. Darcy when I first read Pride and Prejudice as a teenager.  But my fantasies had nothing to do with deep down wanting a patriarchal, dominating or controlling man.  They had to do with a desire for total admiration from someone worthy to give it. 

Mr. Darcy is sexy and compelling because he is a strong and powerful figure and also because he respects the strength and power of Elizabeth Bennet.  Despite the fact that Elizabeth Bennet is rather unglamorous (with very embarrassing relatives, looks not quite up to par with her sister's, and very little wealth), Mr. Darcy sees her true worth.  Elizabeth Bennet is Mr. Darcy's equal in intelligence, wit, sense, and character, and Mr. Darcy loves her for it. The fantasy is to win the utter respect, admiration and passion of a man of great intelligence and great character, especially a man who is not easily won. 

Far from being dominating or controlling, Mr. Darcy does not presume that he can dictate anything to Elizabeth Bennet.  When she rejects his first proposal, he is surprised (and angry at her uncivil manner in refusing him), but he takes "no" for an answer. He also later comes to understand why she was insulted by his proposal.  When changed circumstances lead him to propose a second time, he promises never to bother her again if she doesn't want him.  His behavior contrasts favorably with that of Mr. Collins who refuses to believe her when she tells him she doesn't want him. 

Mr. Darcy also compares favorably to other romantic literary heroes.  Gone With the Wind's Rhett Butler slaps Scarlett O'Hara around, and he ridicules and patronizes her throughout their relationship.  He loves her passionately but without any attendant respect or admiration.  Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights is a controlling "batterer" type, indulging in terrible cruelty when his obsessive, all-consuming love-hate relationship with Catherine is not satisfied. 

While Potter believes that "no wonder men are confused" by the modern-day Darcy fixation, in fact, Mr. Darcy is the perfect feminist romantic hero.  His example gives lie to the notion that feminism is about wanting a weak and malleable romantic partner.  His example also gives lie to the notion that even self-professed feminist women really want to be dominated by men.  It's really quite simple: the best romances are between strong people who appreciate each other's strength and Jane Austen recognized that truth two whole centuries ago.   

(NOTE:  In light of recent blogging against heteronormativity, I am trying to figure out how to make this post not so heteronormative.  On the one hand, I was thinking of qualifying the post by stating that Mr. Darcy is the perfect romantic hero for heterosexual feminist women.  On the other hand, I have no reason to assume that only straight women yearn for a partner like Mr. Darcy.  I say this as someone who once had a mad crush on a remote and mysterious woman who was rather like Mr. Darcy in many ways.)   

UPDATED:  I am feeling all embarrassed and shy and pleased by Amanda's post on this post.  How great to wake up first thing in the morning to find nice things about yourself on the internet! And this on the mark observation:

And the book makes the case that often the best personalities sometimes are initially the most caustic.  For feminist women, many of whom are used to threatening people all the time with our unwillingness to show female submission, that’s a very alluring message.

Do check out the great comments thread after her post about people's favorite romantic couples from books and film.

MOVIES TO WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN

My discussion of The Godfather and the recent production of Pride & Prejudice has gotten me thinking of my very favorite movies.  There are only a very few movies that I like to watch over and over again.  For me, and probably for most people, a really great movie has to get it all right, every element-- music, costuming, casting, plot, acting, authenticity of time and place, and visual beauty.  Authenticity is a biggie for me.  If a movie strikes a false note, it's like a terrible scratch on a record.  In Pride & Prejudice starring Keira Knightley for example, I was in agony when Mr. Bingley dropped into Jane Bennet's bedroom because I really don't think that during that era a man would have gone into a woman's bedroom when she was sick and in bed.  The exception to the authenticity requirement, however, is in the area of musicals, which can have a little bit more theatrical leeway. 

So without further ado, here are the movies that I can (and do) watch over and over again.

1.   The Godfather.  Ah, but of course.  Every scene is pretty much perfect, all the characters are wonderful and interesting, and there is authenticity galore.  And great music!  And the scenes in Sicily are just gorgeous!  I could rave on for hours!  Best line: "Don't forget the canoli."

2.   The Godfather II.  I am a little less into Michael in this one, since he has already undergone the transformation which was so fascinating during the first Godfather.  My favorite scenes are the Senate hearings and the flashbacks.  Also, one can't forget the fabulously romantic moment when the young Vito Corleone (played by Robert DeNiro) leaves a pear on the dining room table as a gift for his wife.  (Swoon.)  I also love it when Frankie Pantangeli disavows his previous statement to the FBI. 

3.  The Godfather III.  OK, I know, I know.  I usually don't watch the whole thing.  But I will watch the first party scene and then the ending as the family is leaving the opera.  The middle is useless, and as we all know, the problems with this movie are manifold.   Sofia Coppola's acting was the least of it.  She at least had the right ethnic look for the part (which was important and which Winona Ryder is lacking), and she conveyed the basic idea of the good daughter/Italian-American Princess.  A far more serious flaw was that the the whole plot involving the Vatican was just silly. Second, it seems completely unrealistic for Talia Shire's character (Connie) to suddenly be involved in the family business and killing people. (I really don't think a woman of her generation from a traditionalist Italian family would act like this.  It's a pity because the first two movies charted a very believable course for her from Daddy's girl to patronized pawn of the men's machinations to embittered but still powerless middle-aged "floozie.")  Third, there is absolutely no reason for Bridget Fonda's character.

Nonetheless, I still watch this movie over and over again because the first two Godfathers leave you wanting more, wanting to know what becomes of this family.  It is very satisfying to see all the characters back again many years later, even minor characters like the Sicilian bodyguards from the first Godfather, or the bridesmaid Sonny was having sex with at Connie's wedding. 

4.   Scarface.  No, I am not generally into tough guy/shoot 'em up movies, but this one and The Godfather trilogy are so incredibly good.  Obviously, I think Al Pacino is fantabulous, but this movie also meets my requirements of apparent authenticity and great music and great ensemble cast.  Great script, great sense of time and place, great plot.  It has all the elements of a classic story of the American Dream gone terribly awry-- and what a window into the psychology of an overprotective, controlling brother obsessed with his sister's sexual "purity."

My whole family loves this movie in fact.  My mother's favorite line is, "Don't get high on your own supply." My husband likes, "This is what a bad guy looks like.  Take a look at the bad guy." (Al Pacino making a scene after Michelle Phieffer throws a drink in his face at the hoity-toity restaurant.) 

5.  Howard's End.  I think I saw this four times in the movie theater when it first came out.  It was perfect, especially Anthony Hopkins as the somewhat bigoted and obtuse Edwardian robber baron type.  And the scene when Emma Thompson breaks down!

6.  Jesus Christ Superstar.  This is one I have loved all my life, ever since I first saw it in a theater with my parents when I was about four.  This movie was in fact my introduction to the Gospels and my main source of information about Christianity for a very long time! While it may look light and silly on the surface, it actually does get the main points across and conveys the complexities of the story rather well. My poor mother was stuck answering constant barrages of questions from me at the time as I puzzled over the story. ("But why did they want to kill him? Why didn't he try to escape? Why wouldn't he let the others fight for him?  Why did Judas turn him in? Why why why?")  Because it tells the story rather well, I don't actually think that the movie/musical is disrespectful, aside from the passing suggestion that the Apostles may have gotten stoned at the Last Supper (and I suppose the "heretical" suggestion that Jesus may have wanted Judas to betray him). 

7.   Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968).  People have said the acting isn't that great.  But I don't care because this version seems to perfectly capture the essence of the play, that springtime feeling of being extremely young and extremely excited about sex and romance.  I am glad that Zeffirelli chose actors who were actually the same age as Romeo and Juliet.  And as always, he did a bang up job with the costuming and the sets and the casting.  Oh, and Michael York was quite good looking back in the day. 

8.  The Last of the Mohicans.   As I think Daniel Day-Lewis observed in an interview, this movie has a melodramatic, pulp fiction feel to it.  That's what makes it fun. The one weak moment is when some of the raggedy Militia members start fluently spouting ideas about Natural Law and the rights of man. 

9.  Chicago.  I am sure the MRAs love this movie, since it is all about female murderers skating because of their sex.  But it is a good reminder that some of these people whom we think of as "just celebrities" are incredibly talented.  Who knew that Richard Gere, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellweger had this mastery of musical theater?  And how many musicals raise such interesting historical questions about the treatment of women defendants in jazz age Chicago?   

DOES SEX DETERMINE SPECIALTIES WITHIN THE LAW?

I just spent a lovely morning immersed in the intricacies of how a gas heating system is constructed and how a fire-cause-and-origin expert goes about the process of forming his opinion.  As I mentioned, I am very excited to be handling a fire lawsuit as this was a type of law I had hoped to become more involved in at my last firm.

And of course, this has gotten me thinking about the subject of gender when it comes to specialties within litigation.  When I first started at my former law firm, I was assigned to the Employment Litigation practice group and Legal Malpractice Defense.  Our firm (which did litigation only) was only 20% women attorneys, and all of the women attorneys did employment litigation.  I was a little concerned at first that I was being assigned to some sort of pink collar ghetto, just because it was weird that every single attorney in the group was a woman (except for the leader of the group) and it was weird that every woman in the firm was involved in Employment law.

Employment Litigation was, however, a good fit for me in terms of my skills because a lot of employment cases hinge on credibility issues, just like my criminal law cases.  Employment Litigation also involves a lot of fact investigation and informal interviewing of witnesses which was also similar to what I had done as a prosecutor.   My concerns were also somewhat alleviated by the fact that Employment Litigation is a high paying practice area and that the legal issues involved are both complex and interesting.  I also wound up doing work on construction law cases, fire and explosion cases, and some commercial litigation, but Employment Litigation always remained the area in which I was most associated.

Nonetheless, the heavy female involvement in Employment Litigation niggled at me the whole time I was at the firm.  While many of my colleagues assured me that Employment Litigation is a perfectly respectable and valuable area in which to practice, somehow it seemed more petty to be dealing with the question of whether a supervisor called his employee an “old lush” (a typical employment law scenario) than whether there are grounds for rescission of a construction contract.  On the other hand perhaps I was the one being sexist by seeing less value in a practice area dominated by women.

Another issue:  My firm may have preferred to have women attorneys represent companies accused of discrimination because female representation subtly counteracts the impression that these companies are hostile to groups that traditionally suffer discrimination. (I should note that very, very few of our cases involved allegations of sex discrimination, however.) In one particular instance, my male boss told me that he wanted me to handle a mediation in which our client was going to try to settle a claim brought by a young woman.  My boss thought the plaintiff was more likely to be receptive to my efforts to settle the case because I was myself young and female.  I didn’t really mind that tactic because -- hey, when you’re trying to achieve a particular result for your client you try to use every ethical tool at your disposal.  On reflection, however, it is troubling when one’s value to a case is explicitly tied to one’s gender.

One also questions why more women (at least in my firm) weren’t assigned to deal with more technical areas involving specialized knowledge and forensic evidence.  I certainly would have been most pleased to focus on construction litigation or fire-and-explosion cases (and my fire-and-explosion mentor even requested that I be assigned to him), but somehow that never happened.  I think there are a variety factors that may have played into my not working on those more “masculine” types of cases, so I don’t want to be too hasty in yelling sexism.  But, in all honesty, I can’t help but wonder whether sexism may have been a factor too.

I was ready, willing, and able to deal with the “harder” types of cases and expressed that to all the right people.  But somehow I was always been steered towards the “softer” types of litigation, despite my stated interests and enthusiasm.  Although obviously my experience is purely anecdotal, it leads me to question the notion that women are naturally more attracted to certain fields while men are naturally more attracted to others.  Now I haven’t fought tooth and nail to handle particular types of cases. I am not so enamored of fire-and-explosion-law that it’s breaking my heart not to be specializing in it. Nonetheless, I would have been perfectly happy to develop a specialty in this area.

NOTE:  I have not come to any firm conclusions about my experience.  Nor am I claiming that this is more than just my experience and impressions.

SECOND NOTE:  At my current firm, I practice primarily in the area of defending police departments, particularly with regard to alleged civil rights violations.  I believe I am the only woman in my state who defends these types of cases.  This type of law also dovetails nicely with my experience as a prosecutor but I think it is perceived as more "masculine" perhaps because our clients are all police officers, which is an overwhelmingly male dominated profession.