Unit D Blog #39

I think for the work/life balance aspect of the professional fields of work there must be initiatives set off to get this program into motion. Some incentives could be a good idea, for instance the government could help the aid in the funding of some of these programs as long as the employers are willing to carry through. This would put the employer in charge of the programs but they would be funded initially by government programs. This would make the employee more likely to ask about getting the specific benefits, and set into motion a serious change from within workplaces all over. I believe that this is one way to initiate work/life balance benefits, and perhaps even some extra help for the employee. There are many ways to set off the work/life balance programs that the EEOC has lobbied to create. If the government mandated programs and forced companies to begin assistance programs, this may be seen as kind of a harsh way to solve the issue, but it would be just and fair, and would set off a serious of programs that will bring to light the issues at hand. Once all of these programs have been created the equity between man and woman in the law profession can finally be equal, which we need to instate if we ever hope to have equality in the workplace.

Unit D Blog #38

Jeanine Pirro is the female lawyer which I chose to write about in this blog. I will now show you all her profile as depicted on the the provide website for the blog number.
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Jeanine Pirro is the first woman District Attorney in Westchester County, the first woman Westchester County court judge, the first woman to try a murder case in Westchester County and the first woman in New York State to be named "outstanding prosecutor."

In October 1997, Jeanine Pirro, chair of the New York State Commission on Domestic Violence Fatalities, issued a comprehensive report.

The Commission's detailed recommendations resulted in the passage of legislation to enhance protections and provide safeguards to victims of domestic abuse."

Jeanine Pirro is a very influential lawyer from the state of New York. She is the district attorney of Westchester County and has really been an influential piece in the law profession. She has done extensive and influential work in the issue of domestic violence. Her research has led to legislation being passed and assists victims of domestic violence on a daily basis. Jeanine Pirro's work will be forever remembered and she will be seen as an influential figure in modern law.

Unit D Blog #36

I most certainly believe that corporate America can lure women back into the workforce. It is quite a shame that women have not been getting the equal treatment that their male counterparts in the workforce. All of our blogs thus far have pretty much shown that there is a lot of work to be done concerning making everything equal for women. White males especially have had the distinct advantage in corporate industries, making up a large percentage of the total core. It is completely biased that they have received preferred treatment in the industry, as I'm sure everyone can agree that equal treatment of all people would be the best option available. Corporate America has to lure women back in by making up for all of its mistakes in the past concerning women. They need to even out the wages right off the bat, and they also need to allow for the hiring of women to be on the same ratio is that of men. As we have been discussing in this unit so far, these corporations need to implement assistance for those women that care for their children alone, or with a husband that has been laid off. These companies also need to consider the amount of women and people in general that care for sick, elderly, or disabled family members. If they are able to even things out across the board to make the industry fair for all people, then they may have a shot at luring women, who are graduating college as well as attending college on a higher levels than males, back into the workforce in which women have been shunned and disadvantaged with since the start. Corporations need to realize that women are just as smart as men, and as college numbers show, more educated as a majority. They will realize after they study these factors that their biases have been negative the whole time, and that women deserve just as much of a shot as men do in the professional world.

Unit D Blog #35

The EEOC's document about "Best Practice" in regards to employees dealing with caregiver/work and family balance. I think that this document is a very important piece of information to say the least. We can easily see that balance of family and work is an issue that many Americans have to deal with. The majority of the people that deal with this issue however is women, and as the article more specifically stated, women of color. This is a major issue, because the article also shows how many mothers are left to work and provide for their kids entirely on their own individual income. Since this issue is so prevalent in today's society, some form of assistance should be provided for these women. The EEOC asks for employers to do more than merely the bare minimum when it came for assisting the employees who have a busier home life, such as a person who cares for a disabled family member, spouse, etc. I think this article should go a long way in getting some employers to think critically about the situation in which many of their employees have to handle at home. The article also goes into detail about how the current economic state of the country has been especially tough on the industries such as construction, and as the article stated, investment banking. This means that women are providing much of the financial support for many families in situations such as this. I believe that with more of a push on a hot button issue such as this, serious change could be made, but it all starts with employers, and their willingness to support this proposition. We can only hope that these companies and businesses will be considerate to these mothers and others in care giving situations.

Unit D Blog #33

Woman have made many advances in the law industry since joining the professional workforce. While there has been much progress made, there is also still room for much improvement. We will take a little time in this blog to discuss the advancement of women in the field of law. Yes, woman have began to take many positions of power in the United States within big time corporations and law firms. Woman have also began to make more money than they have in the past, although these are hardly things to brag about considering our country is based off of everybody being "equal." There are signs of good news however, as a second woman has received a spot on the Supreme Court, making the ratio of women to men the highest it has ever been within that court system. This is in fact a good sign because it gives women everywhere the understanding that if they work hard, they can actually achieve the highest goals, which in the fact may have seemed a little impossible in the past. It is completely biased and unfair that women have not had equal access to fair wages and positions in comparison to men. This being said, the progress that has been made is remarkable, no matter how much of a double edged sword this statement may be. It is hard to be proud of something that should not be something that we aspire to, but rather something that we have had all along. But since this is not the case, we must enjoy the progress that we have seen women make up to this point, and realize that we take for granted some of the opportunities that we have today, no matter how unfair that may be.

Unit D Blog #32

I feel that parenting and a career as a lawyer for men and women can have a few different outcomes in terms of their careers. Obviously a woman's career can be hurt simply with the amount of maternity leave and time spent with the infant. This is unjust and we can all agree with that point by now. Men are traditionally, and this is pushed hard through media influence, supposed to be the ones that are making the money for the children in the family. Men are the breadwinners, the supporters, and the hard workers. These things are not as true as the media has portrayed them to be, but in the public eye this is really how they believe that things work. Because this mentality is so prevalent in our society, men are often chastised for taking time off work, especially being a lawyer, to spend time with their families. Co workers would look at this as something that a woman should be doing for the family, taking time off, and they would look down upon a male coworker for wanting this. Society today is trying to rid itself of these extreme gender biases that we are forced to deal with, and as time goes on it would seem that there should be no difference whether the man or the woman is the one who makes more money, spends more time at work, helps out around the house, takes time off when the kids are sick, etc. These gender lines should become more and more invisible as our society adapts to a system where there is no roles set out for each gender. More and more families have began to adopt this mentality and this is leading to a new way in which things are beginning to happen in the United States. These days, more and more men can be seen taking time off work to be with the kids, cooking and cleaning at home, among other things across gender lines. At the same time, women can be seen as high powered attorneys, CEO's, and the member of the family that is bringing home the most money at the end of the week. We are making progress, but there is still plenty of progress to be made in our country.

Unit D Blog #31

Many professions come standard with the difficulty of balancing work and family life. This balance is often times seen where certain biases come into play concerning women and what they are supposed to do when they have children and they work as lawyers and such. Jobs have obvious problems with men or women wanting to spend too much time away from the office, because this leads to them not being able to handle all of the cases that they are working on or even sometimes results in the loss of a case or a client because of the lawyers family life. Their are certain ways to attempt to fix this problem so that the employer can be happy with the amount of work that the employee commits too, and also so that the parents of children can be able to spend time with their families. i believe that jobs need to incorporate more work that can be done from home into the work week. This way, instead of spending over 40 and 50 hours a week in the office the employee can be doing this busy work from home, and will give them the opportunity to spend some quality time with their families, which is arguably the most important part of life for somebody who has children to attend to. This option needs to be readily accessible for mothers who are working in the law field. Often times these females are left out in the cold when the issue arises of a family life. The employer will say that the woman has to choose one or the other, family or work, and this is completely unjust. The balancing of home and work life is a very hard balance to maintain, but with a little help and cooperation from the employers, life could be a lot more simple for all of the parties involved.

Unit D Blog #29

I believe that so few minority women stay with law firms because of the cases that they get assigned. These women often face biases and when a case comes in dealing with a person of the same ethnic background of the female lawyer, often times they are stuck working on this case. The bosses of the law firms see the female lawyer and her race and say "Well we just had a case dealing with an African American, lets put her on the case because she is black as well so she can relate with the defendant." Stories from NPR have shown us that women are often scrutinized for their race and this goes a long way in creating a reason for a female lawyer to want to leave the law firm all together and find a job elsewhere. The women in these positions are sick and tired of being genderized and stereotypes into a certain category simply because of the color of their skin. These women want to move past the judgments of their gender and race and be treated in the same way. As of now, these females are subject to racial jokes, among other things that really begin to hurt from their male counterparts. Nobody would want to stay at a job where they face this extreme amount of bias, and these women, like anyone else in the same position, have decided that enough is enough and they have began to move on from these jobs where the treatment is unfair. If we hope to have equality in our work place then we need to fix the unjust aspects of these jobs right away.

Unit D Blog #28

The article that we read on Media Matters shows us ways in which the media and certain interested parties have been criticizing and portraying judge Sonia Sotomayor. These media outlets mentioned in the article seemed to constantly worry about the "temperament" of the Latina judge, playing off the stereotypes of the typical "fiery, aggressive, Latina woman" that is utilized in sitcoms on major networks nearly every day. Strangely enough I have never heard of this concern when speaking about a male judge nominee. This goes to show that men and women are judged differently when applying for a position and this is clearly unjust. The man in the article who seemed to have the biggest problem with the then nominee for Supreme Court position Sotomayor, was even taking quotes that he obtained by interviewing Sotomayor's coworkers and chopped them up to sound like these interviewees were doubting her ability to lead. In fact, her coworker had actually been trying to talk Sotomayor up, praising her for her actions in the court. When all was said and done however the quote was used against her, claiming that she was in fact "not smart." The brainpower of Sonia Sotomayor is not even up for debate, as she has graduated from two Ivy league universities, one at the top of her class. The media will play on every stereotype and bias that it can, with everybody wanting to give their input on the female judge. Sotomayor has since fought through adversity and now sits on the Supreme Court, a place where she has worked exceptionally hard to get to, and a place where she certainly deserves to be.

Unit D Blog #27

The competency gap between women and men in the law field is one that has been existence since the positions were first created. In the modern day we have come a long way in closing in on this gap although there is still an obvious difference. Since men dominate the positions within the law field, women start out at a disadvantage. There are certain aspects within these professions that do damage to the chances that a woman has of being promoted, but most importantly, respected in the workplace. We heard the story on NPR about the employee Ms. Shaffer who is suing GE for hiring in other places rather than within the company when she feels that she was perfectly competent to fill the role. This is an example of how men that dominate the field do not believe that woman are good for leadership roles. Part of this id due to the myth that woman are better caregivers than leaders, and woman are constantly associated with being "motherly" among various other adjectives that describe how one would enjoy being responsible for a child and so on. Woman in these fields are often faced with the bad situation of whether to act stone cold in their workplace and try to move up within the company or to have children and start/care for a family of their own. Most of the time these woman do not get the option of having both, which is unfair because the burden of carrying a baby is set completely upon the female shoulders. Change needs to be made within the workplace to allow for female professionals to hold positions of power at a rate consistent with their male counterparts, as well as to allow for them to provide for as well as care and create a family of their own. This is the only way that equality can be achieved.

Unit D Blog #25

Using sexualized behavior as a "weapon in the arsenal" seems to be sort of backtracking for females as a whole. We have come all this way to promote equality in the workforce, and not to say that things are even close to equal at this point, but the fact of the matter is many men and women alike would look at this type of action with a negative connotation. This is because when a woman uses her body to get the things in which she desires in the workplace, as well as anywhere else aside from in ones personal life, she is exploiting herself and her fellow women because it is proving the point that all men see from these women in professional workplaces is their body, and as a thing to desire. Women use this practice all the time in episodes like sleeping with a boss to get a promotion, sleeping with a coworker to find out about things going on within a company, and so on. To me the act is trashy. I look at every person, no matter their gender, as an equal human and someone who can converse as well as provide some sort of intellectual feedback. When a woman is using her body merely as bait it seems to set women back as a whole, and this is not right for all of those women who work hard everyday to insure that they are seen as more than just a "pair of breasts" and so on. If the women who use this act truly care about a society where all men AND women are created equally, which we all obviously know that all people are equal anyway, but we are also aware that not all politicians and WASPS within our community believe the same thing. There is a line that is crossed when one exploits them self, although power to a person who can get whatever they desire merely with their physical appearance. Maybe the rest of us are simply jealous.

Unit D Blog #26

Males often times attempt to help women lawyers in the field of law. Since the field of law is primarily male dominated these men often times will reach out to try to help the women in the profession. This role points to the law as a gendered because since the males dominate the workforce, they take on more of a power role by taking these women professionals "under their wing." This makes the job seemingly biased because the men control nearly all of the positions of power. By these men taking control of the women within the job these women are basically kneeling down to the power of the men in the workplace. This whole cycle is very circular, men dominating the work force, women entering into the work force and receiving help from men, and then the women using the knowledge that they gained from the male perspective to carry along with them throughout the rest of their professional lives. This does not leave any opportunity for a woman to leave her mark on a business unless she is able to make the climb up into an upper management position. While this type of mentality and behavior continues to go on at all levels of law professions, it is still not just nor fair. We need to see more women in roles of power, so that this way the workforce will be fair and unbiased, something that this country has yet to reach in all its years of existence. Women need to fight on and make their voices heard so that the ideals of women everywhere can be heard and everybody could learn from this new and unified perspective.

Unit D Blog #24

I was able to meet with and discuss gender expectations and stereotypes with a law student in the masters program at ASU. His name is Matt and he agreed to answer some questions on the aforementioned subject. He told me that throughout his schooling in the justice and law programs up to this point he had noticed that in the media women and men in the field of law are portrayed completely differently and often in a biased manner. I asked him to explain further and he told me that when men are portrayed as "hard-nosed" prosecutors, they are seen in a positive light, like they are a community hero of sorts. He mentioned that when women are portrayed in the media as "hard-nosed" prosecutors they are given almost a "mean" and negative connotation. He accredited this to the medias role in showing women as always "motherly" and caring, and men in the society see women as someone who they can confide in,l or who will comfort them, so when women are out there doing there part in the world of criminal justice, it is seen as negative. I completely agreed with his point and also realized that in the hiring process often times women are viewed as "too soft" to put people behind bars, and often times this limits them from obtaining the positions that they would hope for. These biases and stereotypes are complimented by the modern media, and the same goes for people of lower income as well as often times minorities. The media has a certain way of portraying these groups in a way that makes the white male look higher above the rest. I believe that a change must be made on the "home-front" and that women need to be cleared of these biases that men and the media create.

Unit D Blog #23

Not only are there less women of power in virtually every position around our country, when they do achieve a position of power, they are often scrutinized for their attire. The clothing choices of women in the fields of politics and law are a hot topic, and they are often brought up in the modern media. At any given time you could open up the Internet and on websites such as Yahoo, AOL, MSN, etc. there are headline stories about a certain political figure looking a certain way. I found an article by John McCain's daughter which stated that Hillary Clinton was "viewed as too hard because she didn't pay enough attention to fashion and beauty," and Sarah Palin was viewed as "too soft because she did just the opposite." What you have in this situation is a complete gender bias that is very unfair to women in professional attire. There is no reason that a woman should be judged for her attire any more than a man would be. As long as the attire is professional then there should be no further comment. Women in the field of law also are faced with a decision of whether they want to dress A-sexually as to not "intimidate" their male coworkers, or whether they want to dress in a "nice" manner which some coworkers could think of as sexy. This situation is completely unfair and this is just another situation in where a woman is placed under scrutiny and biased because of their gender.

Unit D Blog #22

Judge Sonia Sotomayor has come into the Supreme Court with many gender expectations and stereotypes after being the first Latina woman ever selected to the honor. Conservative critics from all facets of news organizations have spent most of their time making false and unproven claims about Sotomayor being a "racist." Pat Buchanon, Newt Gingrich, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and many other notoriously conservative and Republican have been seen publicly bashing Sotomayor with ignorant stereotypes and assumptions. All of these men have questioned whether Sotomayor could perform her job, and by them discussing this on nationally syndicated television, they are obviously trying to get the public to look negatively upon Sotomayor, and even perhaps to associate her name with a negative connotation. On media outlets everywhere there have been comments by right wing males about her being a female. A few of these men made comments such as they doubted whether she could be a true leader because of her gender, and one male guest on a news program even said, "I just hope she won't be making decisions when she is menstruating." Comments such as these tasteless examples affect not only Sotomayor and her supporters, but also young girls all over the United States and world that aspire to be a Supreme Court judge. These men have been socialized by their parents and various other factors to believe that the only person who can handle a position of power correctly is a white male, which is the type of mentality that is brazen with stupidity. If these media outlets continue to negatively approach and chastise the decision to put Sotomayor into a position on the Supreme Court then they continue to make the general public believe that the white male is incapable of condoning anyone into power but themselves, which has been the story of our country since its origin in the 1700's.