No Wonder Men Are Happier

[kymaera]

Who are "They? "

The Men in Black (or also Eggplant sometimes according to Lynxa).

[Drax]

...(some do smack of "Paperchase..."

I saw that movie when I was in college. I was so enamored of that movie.

Even though it would defeat the purpose of the movie, I still wanted to know what the guy got on his paper.

Sorry ladies I'll let you continue.

[Kujaku]

As a high school teacher, there's no way in hell I'm going to wear a skirt.

Waah!! In High school, one of my highlights was seeing my favorite teacher in a skirt.....one time, in what looked like a mini skirt.

I've grown to like fashion on women....nice suits to casual. I don't like baggy clothes or 2 sizes too big on women. No matter the shape or size, it is nice to see something that fits that particular person!

Sorry I haven't been around lately, so much work with no replacement for my co worker yet and the discovery of streamload with 9 terabytes of anime, manga and artbooks @_@

Kujaku

[Cloud]

Are you way in hell he or she is going to wear a skirt?

[soda]

"No Wonder Men Are Happier"

I thought it was because ignorance is bliss....

[Cloud]

Are you serious? Are all Wonder Men Happier

he or she thought it was because ignorance is bliss?

[kisara]

Apparently women who are lawyers shouldn't wear red to court either because they are already viewed as being harsh and aggressive and red will only further the jury's view of her as a giant bitch.

Oh ... doesn't this bring back lovely memories of my law-school days, when one of my female classmates made the mistake of wearing a red suit to a mock trial, where she was playing the part of a plaintiff's lawyer trying to recover damages for the wrongful death of a teenager. Our professor made her go home and change --- yes, that's right. He stopped the mock trial as soon as he walked in and saw what she was wearing (we had just done opening statements), and made us all wait for her to go home and change.

Or ... what about the time another of my classmates made the unfortunate decision to wear red fingernail polish to class. She got called on by the professor, who immediately noticed the bright red fingernail polish, told her she looked like a "lady of the evening" (although he used much more colorful language I shall not repeat here on the board), and kicked her out of class.

There is also an irritating prevalence in the profession amongst male lawyers over the age of....oh....about 45, who still persist in calling us "lady lawyers".

Ah ... and shades of my first boss. He used to say, of me and one other "lady lawyer" in the firm, that we were "pretty smart for a FEMALE attorney".

Oh, how I hated him.

But, we managed to get even. The other "lady lawyer" was from New Orleans, and, every month, her mom would go home to visit family. We almost always took up a collection to purchase a curse on our boss ...

Ah ... the salad days.

Er. . . tex, were you in texas through all this, 'cause I'm starting to suspect it had a lot more with the fact that you and Lynxa are in the south rather than "the legal profession" in general. Not that I don't KNOW there are biases against women THROUGHOUT the country. . . My dad's a lawyer, so I've grown-up around the legal profession here in Ohio and I can't say that I've seen THAT much bias. We have MANY lawyers of the female persuasion and I can't say that I've EVER seen my father, or any other male lawyer I know, treat them with anything other than complete respect. And it completely boggles my mind that ANYONE would make some of the comments you gals have mentioned. Mostly because. . . I could never think it wise for someone to make comments to someone entering the legal proffession that might be construed as sexual harrassment or gender bias. Which some of those comments most certainly could be! I mean, I can certainly see that profs might comment on attire, as I know it can effect jury pereption and this holds true for MEN as well (liked to see a male law student show-up to a mock trial without a tie). But to call a student a w^&#*?????

[Cloud]

Indeed this bring back lovely memories of his or her law-school days when one of his or her female classmates made the mistake of wearing a red suit to a mock trial where I was playing the part of a plaintiff's lawyer trying to recover damages for the wrongful death of a teenager does. That was not much of an explanation. What else?

[hanaeleh]

My mom is a legal secretary and that is why I'm NOT a lawyer- she was abused, talked down to, and treated like dirt at every single job she ever had. Both men and women lawyers were such A**holes I decided I didn't need to be in such a profession, as those would be my co-workers.

Not saying that those in the law profession on this board are that way, but I still noticed a disturbing trend that I did not want to be around.

[Baakay]

My mom is a legal secretary and that is why I'm NOT a lawyer- she was abused, talked down to, and treated like dirt at every single job she ever had. Both men and women lawyers were such A**holes I decided I didn't need to be in such a profession, as those would be my co-workers.

Not saying that those in the law profession on this board are that way, but I still noticed a disturbing trend that I did not want to be around.

Heh...heh...

One of my first jobs out of college was as a paralegal (and I had another following the brief law school experience). I made the mistake once of telling one of the oh-so-arrogant and holier-than-thou new lawyers in this firm that he had made a grammatical error in a document. And offered to fix it for him. Whooooo!! It was an awful faux pas (both the grammatical error, which would have gotten him laughed at, and my having noticed it). How dare a mere peon -- and a girl, at that -- DARE!

Oh well. On the other end of the spectrum was the litigation/medical malpractice attorney I primarily worked with. At least the guy had a sense of humor. He was, in fact, a peach. He gave me a ride home one especially WET afternoon (I usually walked) and, during the ride, remarked that he had been practicing law for ten years that week. Without batting an eye or cracking a smile (or engaging the brain, obviously) I blurted out, "so when will you start doing it for real?"

We almost had an accident because he started laughing so hard When it sunk into my brain the power relationships involved and what I had ACTUALLY done just then, I was intensely grateful that he had that quirky little sense of humor as well.

I actually found the same to be the case, for the most part, among the men in my classes during that fabulous/hideous experience at law school. Brilliant, quirky, incredibly funny men. It was the older generation (who are probably all either retired or dead by now) who were the total poops -- the cruel, the sexist, the bigots (good god, don't be a gay guy around any of them!!). I sometimes wonder whether the really cool people in my class ended up having the humanity beaten out of them in school or ended up retaining their senses of humor, like Peter above

[kittens]

Heeheehee.... This is why I have never worked outside of academic It is scarely......

kittens, the biggest whinny

[tex-chan]

Er. . . tex, were you in texas through all this, 'cause I'm starting to suspect it had a lot more with the fact that you and Lynxa are in the south rather than "the legal profession" in general.

Well, I was in Texas when this happened. And, in fact, I was in Texas throughout my career as a lawyer. But, I suspect it had a lot more to do with the age of the men making the comments than anything else. Both were from that "old school" belief that women had no place outside the home.

Most of the younger lawyers that I dealt with, both in school and in my career --- and by "younger", I mean my age, slightly older, or just younger in terms of years of practice --- did not have this type of attitude in such prevalence. But, even so, the legal field is very male dominated, and it is a tough field for women. It is much less likely for women to make partner in a firm, win the larger clients, advance as quickly as men who have been practicing the same amount of time, or pull down the huge salaries that quite a few male lawyers pocket. As for sexual harrassment ... it happens --- a lot. From what I've seen, many lawyers like to play fast and loose with the law ... when you run with the bulls every day, I guess you're not as afraid of the horns, so to speak. At any rate, sexual harassment of women is quite prevalent in the legal field ... and it's not confined to administrative personnel, either. Many women lawyers are harassed every step of the way during their careers. It is less likely that a woman lawyer would sue for sexual harassment --- for one thing, those cases are very difficult to prove, especially with the climate of the courts over the past several years ... and, for another thing, win or lose, she is kissing her legal career good-bye. No firm will ever hire her after that. So, in that way, administrative personnel have a bit more legal protection than female lawyers do. Don't get me wrong --- I'm not complaining or jumping up on my suffragete, women's rights soapbox here ... and I'm not trying to start any kind of debate or argument. I'm just stating an opinion gleaned from years of hard knocks and personal observations. Law is a very fast-paced, stressful field ... many lawyers are very difficult to deal with as they do not have the most pleasant personalities to start with and the adversarial context of legal practice just brings these personality quirks to the forefront ... and it can be a very clique-ish (SP??) profession, as well.

As for the wh*** comment ... that one really surprised the heck out of me, too. But, it really did happen. Actually, when I think back on it, it still shocks me. But, that professor was a "charmer", to start with ... a man who had had a very successful litigation career until he managed to lose it all at the bottom of a bottle. I think he was pretty ticked off at being stone cold sober, probably because it gave him a lot of time to think about just what he had tossed away --- but, some people deserve that kind of suffering, IMO.

Yes, I know, the above statement makes me a terrible person, too, who deserves more than my fair share of bad karma. Well, that and probably lots of other stuff I've done in the past, too --- LOL. But, it's a true statement, and one you can't really appreciate unless you had the pleasure (and I use that term in its most sarcastic meaning) of meeting him in person. There are a few people who really have no redeeming qualities whatsoever ... and he was one of them.

Anyhow ... not that this has anything to do with the topic of whether or not men are happier and, if so, why ... LOL. Sorry for the serious meandering off topic here ... I'm just having one of those days where my brain doesn't want to work.

[Cloud]

Thanks for telling me your taste in men.

[tex-chan]

Thanks for telling me your taste in men.

Oh Cloud ... how can you be so cute ... and yet oh-so-lost and misled? It boggles the mind.

[Cloud]

People say I am cute.