Ladies in Law – An Alternative Perspective
Following yesterday’s post on the continued presence of a glass ceiling for women in the legal profession, you might be interested in this (female) insight from Law and More. To give you a flavour of Carolyn Elefant’s slightly unconventional take on why women may not be getting further here goes… " "Why … haven’t women advanced?" Shoot me. But my answer to this, whatever the profession, has always been that women won’t or can’t play the game well enough. We women, …
Following yesterday’s post on the continued presence of a glass ceiling for women in the legal profession, you might be interested in this (female) insight from Law and More. To give you a flavour of Carolyn Elefant’s slightly unconventional take on why women may not be getting further here goes…
" "Why … haven’t women advanced?"
Shoot me. But my answer to this, whatever the profession, has always been that women won’t or can’t play the game well enough. We women, and I unachieved until I was 58 years old, tend to be social conformists. We pick up on professional, organizational and even community norms and comply. End of story."
In isolation that may seem a fairly stark view but taken with her insight on male acheivers it makes interesting reading…
" Someone seems to tell males early in their lives that they have to sort out what rules they can and must break and in what manner.  Unless that’s done as a complete package they will wind up in prison or bankrupt. It’s opined that one reason media tycoon Rupert Murdoch can take giant risks, fail sometimes and keep winning at higher stakes is that at Oxford he was immersed in game theory. That cognitive sport was the rage then. One of its tenets was figuring out, sooner and better than others, what norms should be ignored, bypassed, or boldly broken from."
For the full article click here .
Fair assessment or gobbledygook? Comment on this post by clicking the comments tab.
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November 20, 2008
What is game theory? Surely the fact that men currently occupy the top positions combined with the natural fall out rate of females wanting to have babies has an effect. I for one don’t want to have children in the future only to desert them at the earliest opportunuity to go back to work.
November 20, 2008
Game theory is a way of applying empirical concepts to create social strategies – check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
November 20, 2008
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
November 20, 2008
Check out Wickipedia to see what Game Theory is. I tried reading a book on it once but broke several matchsticks trying to keep my eyes open.
November 20, 2008
1 Has a fair comment (no disrespect to ladies who want to return to work and hit the heights of the corporate ladder after babies) but one wonders if the opinion of this group is considered in such arguments. Also, Murdoch can take big risks because he has big reserves. Not sure I wasa taught all that stuff as a child.
November 20, 2008
How does this apply to lawyers. Most of my colleagues, male and female are risk averse in their working habits. The ladder seems to be more of a political minefield than anything else in my firm. Many of my female colleagues seem just as good, if not better, at dealing with that than my male colleagues.