Women Lawyers Feel Betrayed When Female Bosses Aren’t Nurturing
Experts who study women in the legal profession are noting that the idea of a sisterhood of female lawyers isn’t always the reality in the workplace.
Women expect female bosses to be nurturing, and the result can be feelings of betrayal when the reality is different, the Am Law Daily reports.
California-based consultant Peggy Klaus, who conducts workshops for women in corporations and firms, notes the problem. “As postfeminists, we are told that women are nurturers and that we are all in it together,” she says. “Women can accept hierarchy from men, they can tolerate their yelling and bad behavior.” But women may take conflicts with women personally, according to Klaus and Lauren Rikleen, who wrote Ending the Gauntlet.
The story notes an ABA Journal online survey that found a majority of female lawyers under 40 expressed a preference for male bosses. Among female lawyers under 40 who thought gender matters, 93 percent said female bosses were more demanding than males. Another study by the University of Toronto found that women with female supervisors claimed greater depression, anxiety, headaches and other ailments.
Generational tension could be part of the problem, law firm consultant Jane Pigott told the Am Law Daily. Some older women lawyers who made huge personal sacrifices to achieve success expect the same of their younger counterparts.
The article says those nurturing expectations need to be lowered. And women need to be trained to depersonalize conflict, according to Rikleen.
