"Opt Out" or Pushed Out: Are Women Choosing to Leave the Legal Profession? March 27 & 28, 2009 - All Comments

re: Judith Warner: Families to Care About

Justin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 03:52:03 GMT

Warner:

"So let’s make sure we remember who's **really** suffering. And give their stories their due."

Your comment: "who face or faced the **same** challenges as the rest of all women"

I imagine Warner might respond like this: the challenges may be equally difficult, but they are not the "same"; the "support deficit" is, if her facts are right, experienced more by this "top 5%" of women, while the ones who are "really suffering" face threat relatively less from inequality in work-sharing within a relationship, but more as direct economic impact.

Maybe this impact can be psychically "shared"/absorbed better by a couple/family with more equitably distributed house/"work" load. Maybe that's a lesson for men - and women - in the dreaded "top 5%." Since policy is presumptively set by people in this "top 5%," let's keep in mind that it's not just "we" who should "**care**" about "their" families - families of all kinds and at all "percentiles" (of whatever mysterious quantum Warner is talking about) might be able to **learn** from each other.

Warner goes a bit far, though, with "rich and wretched." How is that any more constructive than "poor and stupid?" If we're all in this together, men and women, we're also all in this together, "rich" and "poor." Her point that coverage is disproportionate needs to be tempered by your point that an economic crisis interacting with a gendered society (at all "levels") is experienced as a threat, to some degree, by everyone.

You're not naive, you're more small-r republican than she is. Spread the leisure, share the angst.

re: Judith Warner: Families to Care About

Justin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 02:55:04 GMT

(actually, it's probably correlated more highly, or even only?, with *wealth*, since "taking time off" will impact income directly, and wealth only by attrition).

re: Judith Warner: Families to Care About

Justin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 02:53:26 GMT

"(of what? I'd like to know)"

Leisure. Highly correlated, no doubt, with income and wealth, but slightly different. Those in the 95+%'ile of "ability to choose whether and how to work."

This "leisure" is probably not directly observable, but it's (part of) what I understand the conference to be about.

Spread the Leisure!

P.S. -

re: Read this op-ed!

Justin — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 12:27:45 GMT

"adult time – time as a couple and time with friends."

But *is* this "adult time" - or is it "adult" time as presented to us by, well, "Friends?" "Time with friends" sounds to me more like college/one's twenties.

To me, the major concern should be not the [op-ed's phrase] "quality drop" - not the *total* drop in "non-kid time" - but the *E*quality drop - the inequitable *division* of the remaining non-kid time. (But this is probably informed by my background as one of a large number of children - if you've got only one or two kids, you've actually got a potential to have some "me/us/friends" time, and then the question of how to divide that time becomes more salient.)

re: Student Guest Blogger: Helen O'Reilly

jrennie — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:40:01 GMT

The "mommy guilt" portion of the More article was interesting to me. Bartz says:

When Bartz talks about that time in her life, she literally ducks her head, as if dodging blows from would-be critics. But she refuses to be judged. How did she handle mommy guilt? "I didn't," she says easily. "I was already well established in the business world. I just felt I should be able to do both, and I had the resources to get good help."

She exposes the delicate truth that "mommy guilt" is often only felt by those privileged enough to have it. She had the resources to fly halfway across the country every week, which is an extreme, but salient, example of how these types of parenting choices are only available to the reasonably wealthy. Handling the idea of this type of privilege is an uncomfortable part of a conference like this. We acknowledge that "opting out" is a predominantly upper middle class phenomenon analytically distinct from other types of gender discrimination or iniquity.

My struggle is to think of opting out as a larger part of women's struggle in the working world, and while not one that blue-collar or less wealthy employees may face (and may be disdainful of), one that can be a mirror that powerfully reflects women's social expectations of themselves and the world's expectations of women.

re: Student Guest Blogger: Ami Parekh

Joshua Lee — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:40:03 GMT

There is another great reason to implement the changes Ami suggests that I think gets ignored (especially when people say "Oh, I hear it's easier to have a baby in law school than at a firm"): Law school doesn't offer maternity/paternity leave. Once you have a baby, you kind of have to just "get on with it" or you risk missing lots of class, activities, etc. So daycare and parent-conscious scheduling is essential if you want to avoid marginalizing student-parents.

re: Nancy Killefer’s “Nanny Tax” Withdrawal: Double Standard or Just Bad Timing?

Alex C. — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:13:56 GMT

This is not the first time a woman has been faced with the problem of a nanny-tax issue when going through confirmation proceedings. Failure to pay taxes when paying a nanny is a rather frequent occurrence. Because women are traditionally in the position of hiring a nanny, they unfortunately are often the individuals who are blamed for this failure. This is particularly true in the cases of women who work who often rely on nannies.

re: Nancy Killefer’s “Nanny Tax” Withdrawal: Double Standard or Just Bad Timing?

jrennie — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:11:37 GMT

I think I agree with Eve that three makes a trend, and Killefer was unfortunately the third, but at the same time, the only other nominees I can think of that have gone down on "nanny tax" issues are women (Killefer, Baird, Kimba Wood). I'm sure there are others, but why are those the most salient? It makes me wonder if there isn't an implicit assumption that women should take care of, be on top of, and be held accountable for, the home.

Jill Rennie

Yale Law Women Blog Czarina

YLS Class of 2009