27: Law as a Gendered Organization Part III

The competency gap that remains between men and women lawyers is largely due to the hierarchical nature of a law firm. At the top of the food chain is a boys' club of sorts that allows its members to be in the know about their firm's innerworkings. Holly English explains how the gap is perpetuated within the workplace: "Not all women are great, just as all men are not great. But each time a woman is incompetent, or gets pregnant and leaves, the episode is overblown, and all women pay for it, because each individual woman still stands as a symbol for all women" (111). English hammers home the point that often the competence gap lives on through the disconnect between women and men officemates when in an informal situation.

As far as the strategies that some male lawyers engage in to maintain this gap, one woman in English's study explained: "It's as simple as the discussion about golf--golf being the metaphor for what men do and women don't do in my generation" (110). In attempts to win cases against female lawyers, some male lawyers attempt to play into the idea of the competence gap by blatantly disrespecting their female opponent.