Gender Trials
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€33.99
A01=Jennifer L. Pierce
Author_Jennifer L. Pierce
business culture
Category=JBFA
Category=JBSF1
Category=JHM
Category=LAT
Category=LN
corporate law firms
criticism
double standards
emotional labor
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnography
feminism
gender and sex
gender politics
gender studies
gendered division of labor
gendered labor
gendered work
large corporate law firms
law
law offices
lawyers
legal bureaucracy
legal practice
legal world
litigator
litigators
male domination
office hierarchy
personal exploitation
politics
professional sanction
sexism
sexist attitudes
women
women lawyers
women paralegals
Product details
- ISBN 9780520201088
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 15 Feb 1996
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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This engaging ethnography examines the gendered nature of today's large corporate law firms. Although increasing numbers of women have become lawyers in the past decade, Jennifer Pierce discovers that the double standards and sexist attitudes of legal bureaucracies are a continuing problem for women lawyers and paralegals. Working as a paralegal, Pierce did ethnographic research in two law offices, and her depiction of the legal world is quite unlike the glamorized version seen on television. Pierce tellingly portrays the dilemma that female attorneys face: a woman using tough, aggressive tactics--the ideal combative litigator--is often regarded as brash or even obnoxious by her male colleagues. Yet any lack of toughness would mark her as ineffective. Women paralegals also face a double bind in corporate law firms. While lawyers depend on paralegals for important work, they also expect these women--for most paralegals are women--to nurture them and affirm their superior status in the office hierarchy. Paralegals who mother their bosses experience increasing personal exploitation, while those who do not face criticism and professional sanction.
Male paralegals, Pierce finds, do not encounter the same difficulties that female paralegals do. Pierce argues that this gendered division of labor benefits men politically, economically, and personally. However, she finds that women lawyers and paralegals develop creative strategies for resisting and disrupting the male-dominated status quo. Her lively narrative and well-argued analysis will be welcomed by anyone interested in today's gender politics and business culture.
Jennifer L. Pierce is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota.
