I often read ABA Journal as a great source of legal stories. The journal however has been the center of controversy this month after reporting on the results of a study on the preference of secretaries vis-a-vis male and female partners. The study by Professor Felice Batlan interviewed 142 secretaries at larger law firms and produced a surprising result: not a single secretary preferred female partners. When the ABA Journal reported that surprising fact, professors accused it of fostering gender stereotypes, misrepresenting the results of the study, and displaying a sexist view of the work. Some demanded a retraction and apology from the ABA Journal.
The original story by the ABA Journal put the results of the survey in the second full graph as follows:
Asked whether they preferred to work for male or female partners or associates, 35 percent preferred working for male partners, 15 percent preferred working for male associates, 3 percent preferred working for female associates, none preferred working for female partners, and 47 percent had no opinion.
It also gave Williams and others extensive coverage in explaining the results. Many female secretaries are quoted in the study as explaining their preference for male partners — objecting to how they are treated by some female partners.
The Journal included a full presentation of the views of Williams and others that the survey reflected not a gender difference how partners related to staff but the sexist attitudes of the secretaries. I have read the articles and the underlying research conclusions and I fail to see the basis for the criticism of the ABA Journal. This is a journalistic enterprise and ran a headline isolating the most notable conclusion of the survey. It is very interesting to have a survey where not a single secretary would express a preference for a female partner. Reporter Debra Cassens Weiss then gave the view of feminist scholars that this was the result not of the difference of the partners in their approaches but the distorted view of the secretaries. That is an interesting story presented in a fair way. The Journal then gave a huge follow up story below repeating and expanding on the view of these scholars.
The survey sought to explore gender difference in the workforce between partners and secretaries. If the results came out that most preferred women partners, would the same scholars have argued that that view was due to the gender bias of the secretaries or would it have been explained in a different approach of female partners? Instead, some of the critics refuse to consider if there is a difference in approach among partners and instead insist that it is gender indoctrination of the se secretaries.
I have little expertise in such gender studies and I would expect some results to be shaped by sexist views given the overall problem of sexism in society. However, I do have some experience in legal journalism. In my view, to attack the ABA Journal and demand retraction of the story is unfounded. Debra Cassens Weiss ran with the most striking aspect of the story and then gave the response to that fact — and the other findings are included at the top of the story. The reaction to her piece undermines the credibility of the use and ultimate purpose of the survey.
What do you think?
Source: ABA Journal
As long as the study was done in a proper, scientific way, I have no problem with the ABA publishing a story about it. I would suggest that they dig deeper into the study to confirm its results.
Moar,
I’d like to read the entire survey, wouldn’t you? All I’m finding is reports about the survey. I like to know exactly who was surveyed and how the questions were framed.
Blouise,
I think I may have misread your comment. I’ll pose a different question: Why do you think it’s easier for a woman to manipulate a man than it is for a woman to manipulate another woman?
“It is very interesting to have a survey where not a single secretary would express a preference for a female partner.”
No, what is interesting are the frantic attempt to assign the very self-evident findings some meaning other than what they obviously have.
That’s true, Blouise. Hiring more male legal secretaries might be the answer. More men are becoming paralegals.
Blouise,
I’m going to disagree with you on this one. I watched as women were manipulated by men quite often where I worked. I’d ask why you think it’s easier for women to manipulate men than it is for men to manipulate women.
Although Tony’s point is valid as a partial explanation, I am going to take a real risk here that is guaranteed to anger some … it is far easier for a woman to manipulate a man than it is to manipulate another woman. I would have added a question to the survey geared to exposing that view.
That being said, I agree with the Professor’s assertion “to attack the ABA Journal and demand retraction of the story is unfounded.”
American Bar Association Journal Re-Covers Woman Lawyer/Secretary Study
Forbes
November 4, 2011
http://www.forbes.com/sites/shenegotiates/2011/11/04/american-bar-association-journal-re-covers-woman-lawyersecretary-study/
Excerpt:
The Stereotypes
Journal staff writer Debra Cassens Weiss, turned to Joan Williams, U.C. Hastings law professor and chair of the Hasting’s Center for WorkLife Law, for comment.
Williams was not surprised that the Journal had been asked to retract its first article on Batlan’s study .
Woman-on-Woman Gender Wars
Williams suggested that controversies among women in the workplace can cause even greater controversy when reported than the problem reported upon. She explained that “people fear [coverage] will feed the story line that women’s problems stem not from gender bias but because they undercut each other all the time.”
Williams believes that it’s “important to talk about this pattern of gender bias openly to make clear that it’s not just women being catty, it’s that environments shaped by gender bias tend to pit women against each other.”
In regard to the problem itself, Williams pointed out that “[w]hen a man gets upset, that’s seen as understandable.”
She continued.
“He’s just concerned about quality. But when a woman gets upset, the same display can be seen as evidence that she’s just too emotional.” Williams cites studies showing that displays of anger in the workplace increase a man’s status, but decrease a woman’s status. Other studies
have shown that women who deliver unwelcome feedback in evaluations are seen as having personality problems, but the same is not true for men.”
Much ado about not much.
Since almost half had no preference I would rather hear about the cover story shown – it appears to be a lot more interesting.
Tony C.,
Many women who experience sexual harassment in the workplace are still hesitant today to acknowledge it and/or sue their employers. Many fear loss of their jobs or ostracism. Many are also worried about the “blame the victim” mentality. You have had your work experiences. I had mine. I am sure they were very different.
`The “truth” is often misleading when torn away from the context in which people behave. If you turn on an electric grid under the feet of mice in a cage they fight one another. If you don’t know about the electric gird, you couldn’t be criticiezed for drawing the condlusion tha rates are naturally combative creatures who fight for dominance or “lebensraum.” You can’t take a snap shot of the birthday girl crying and say anything about what’s just happened unless sometime gives you a little history, the gtoup dynamic, etc. I was not on the censtorship side of this kerfuffle but I “get” where they were coming from. And, indeed,men MAY have become models of chivalrous conduct by reason of sexual harassment training and the threat of suits but I personally have seen zero change in the workplace and hear the same stories today that I lived back in the 80’s except the clients don’t tend to get invited to strip clubs anymore, trendy drugs are missing and alcohol consumption has been limited.
Subject: ‘The second wife’: Why female secretaries don’t like working for female attorneys and other discoveries about legal secretaries
Pub: Missouri Lawyers Media
Author: Allison Retka
http://www.dolanmedia.com/view.cfm?recID=592428
‘The second wife’: Why female secretaries don’t like working for female attorneys and other discoveries about legal secretaries
Dolan Media Newswires
ST. LOUIS, MO — For the title of her upcoming paper on the working conditions and attitudes of legal secretaries, Felice Batlan borrowed a quip from one of her more outspoken survey respondents.
“If you become his second wife, you are a fool.”
The phrase captures both past perceptions about legal secretaries and the rapid changes in their jobs wrought by law firm economics and the feminist movement, said Batlan, an assistant law professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Law offices have come a long way from the “Mad Men” fantasy of powerful male attorneys and subservient female secretaries, Batlan said, referencing the popular cable TV show about a 1960s ad agency.
Back then, a legal secretary was known as the “second wife” or “office wife” of a male attorney, performing domestic work alongside office work. The secretary planned the lawyer’s personal parties, booked his vacations, walked his pets, cared for his sick parents and shopped for his “first wife’s” jewelry.
But has that “second wife” relationship changed that much? In Batlan’s 2009 nationwide survey of 164 legal secretaries, 60 percent of respondents said in some cases, the “second wife” moniker still fits.
“Many secretaries adamantly rejected the role of being the second wife,” Batlan said. “Others thought that model still lived and was still strong.”
The survey uncovered another discovery: Legal secretaries prefer not to work for women associates or partners.
In written responses, the secretaries described female attorneys as emotional and demanding supervisors who “have more to prove” and “put on airs.”
It’s true that women attorneys do have more to prove, Batlan said. They also tend to have more domestic and family demands than male attorneys, so may have less time to socialize with their legal secretaries, she said.
Batlan said the secretaries also may have used male attorneys’ behavior as a yard stick to judge the behavior of women attorneys.
“A woman working for a man is naturalized,” she said. “It’s what’s expected. It seems ordinary.
“Working for a woman exposes some very complex class dynamics.”
Batlan’s survey collected some demographic information about legal secretaries. About 97 percent of respondents were women, 78 percent were 41 or older and 45 percent had taken some college courses but had no degree. Thirty percent had a college degree.
Nearly 37 percent of the respondents identified themselves as African American or Latina, indicating the dramatic influx of women of color into the profession, Batlan said.
Batlan’s paper will be published next year in the interdisciplinary journal Studies in Law, Politics, and Society.
http://sbmblog.typepad.com/sbm-blog/2011/11/firestorm-over-aba-headline-about-female-legal-secretaries-preferring-to-work-for-male-lawyers.html Forty seven percent said they had no preference.
I do not see why the truth should be censored.
In fact, I disagree with Turley on what is being shown, as a male employer myself for thirty years amongst many other male employers, I think the currently litigious and unfair criteria for what constitutes “sexual harassment” is probably firmly in mind for male partners directing female employees, and they probably DO treat female employees with greater respect than do female partners that have little to worry about vis a vis a sexual harassment claim.
Although I have never been involved I have heard several horror stories on the sexual harassment front that sound fundamentally unfair to managers. I can see why female secretaries might prefer male partners, the male partners have large financial incentives to treat them more professionally than they might be treated by female partners.
The managing partners are almost always white males.
I’d like to read the entire survey. Who was surveyed? What questions were asked? Had the secretaries/assistants surveyed worked for both male and female lawyers and/or partners?
victoriapynchon:
While the cause may be subject to debate the effect is not. Sure you can quibble with the methodology or the sample size, but can you really defend criticism of the publication for publishing the results? That was the point of this posting I would say.
Ah, but now you’ve been caught skimming . . . the article is by Professor Felice Batlan, not Williams from Hastings who hadn’t yet read it but was only commenting in a general way on the topic. You put your finger on the problem. Was the most notable fact that none of the secretaries preferred to work for a woman partner or that the secretaries’ fortune is tied to the attorneys they work for – not their demonstrated competence. In that context, it is not at all surprising not one secretary preferred a woman partner because their tenure is less certain AND it is easier to create stereotypes based on the small sampling of women who “make it” to partner where their representation is in the teens. Calling attention primarily to the fever rather than its cause – emphasizing the stereotypes – is what a group of seriously first rate women lawyers (including the former managing partner of Pillsbury) – thought was distorting of women in the profession. Agree or not, the grievance was not an unreasonable one.
I think the truth is inconvenient for some people who insist on dogma over reality.