The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School publishes a monthly journal, Negotiation.  The June issue had a disturbing article about new research on women and negotiation.  According to a new book by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, Ask for It:  How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want,

men initiate negotiations to advance their interests about four times more often than women do. . . .Over the course of a woman’s career, the costs of overlooking opportunities to negotiate for her own interests can be staggering.  As an example, Babcock and her colleagues found that only 12.5% of women graduating with master’s degrees from the Heinz School [of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University] in 2002 had negotiated their starting salaries, as compared with 51.5% of male graduates.  Babcock calculated that students who did not negotiate their starting salaries would forfeit at least $1 million in income over their lifetimes.

Salary aside, Babcock says that men are more likely than women to negotiate for resources, training, and other factors that boost job satisfaction and success.  It stands to reason that men who seek out career opportunities will advance more quickly in their organizations than equally qualified women who do not.  In reaction to such inequities, women may grow frustrated and decide to quit.  Given that turnover costs American companies billions of dollars each year, Babcock and Laschever argue that organizations suffer significantly from the fact that women ask for what they need less often than men do.

In a sad Catch-22, research also shows that women who did ask for more money were disliked and penalized.  The article suggests that a woman’s reluctance to negotiate may be reasonable in such instances.  It also notes the following:

Although overt gender discrimination. . . is largely a thing of the past, a more subtle form of inequity persists. . . Rather than intentional acts of bias, second-generation gender biases reflect the continuing dominance of traditionally masculine values in the workplace [emphasis in the original]. 

Although this research might lead one to conclude that women are less good overall as negotiators, researchers have found that when women negotiate on behalf of others they achieved better outcomes than men when bargaining on behalf of someone else.

So, what are the implications of this research for the academy?  Is this something that we should be teaching about in our negotiation courses?  If so, what is the best way to do it?  Or, are these issues best handled in another forum – one more informal? 

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Scientific American reports on a study attempting to explain the biological basis for why girls seem to have superior language skills compared to boys.  As a father of two sons experiencing some of the trials and tribulations of pre-school, I notice these stories.  Apparently, girls completing linguistics tasks show more brain activity in areas specialized for language encoding, while boys show activity in areas relating to visual and auditory functions.  What does this all mean?

[I]t implies that boys need to be taught language both visually (with a textbook) and orally (through a lecture) to get a full grasp of the subject, whereas a girl may be able to pick up the concepts by either method.

Subjects ranged from 9 to 15 years of age.  The next question is whether these differences persist with age.

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Dan's post regarding gender diversity on boards makes some very significant points, particularly about the importance of critical mass.  Many scholars worry that without critical mass, women will be marginalized, less willing to voice their opinions, and in some cases, experience pressure to conform.  But Dan's point about critical mass also reminded me about the relative lack of critical mass in American corporations. 

The latest Catalyst study reveals that women not only hold a small percentage of corporate board seats and other leadership positions at major companies, but also that the growth in such positons was stagnant from 2006 to 2007.  According to the study, the percentage of women board members, corporate officers, and top corporate earners was virtually unchanged from 2006 to 2007 at 14.8%, 15.4%, and 6.7%, respectively.  Moreover, the percentage of women in line positions--which analysts believe represents important gateways for promotion into top leadership positions--fell by 1.8% from 29% to 27.2%.  To be sure, the story is not all about decline or stagnation.  The number of women CEOs at Fortune 500 companies rose from 10-12.  Also, according to the Catalyst study, the number of women holding board committee chairs increased over the past year.  However, the relative stagnant growth in numbers for women business leaders suggests that women may be at an impasse, a concern raised by some scholars who worry about company executives who no longer feel inclinded to promote women once a few have been elevated to leadership positions.

Of course, many have recognized that the number of women in these positions is relatively low.  Indeed, Douglas Bronson's book No Seat at the Table is a good example of this recognition.  However, there is considerable debate about the impact of women on boards and as executive officers (economic or otherwise).  As Dan suggests, with such a small US sample size, it is difficult to get real insight into that debate.  But while we wait for the US sample size to improve, it will be nice to have some comparable data from other countries.

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Yesterday I noticed this article from Law.com that reports that the number of women both applying to law school (larger decreases than the male applicant pool, which has decline also) and enrolling (46.9%, down from 49% five years ago) in is in decline.  The article attempts to explain these numbers with several theories, the most intiguing one that women are turning their backs on the legal profession because of recent reports on the lack of family-friendly policies in law firms.  Because of the high billable hour requirements and low probability of making partner, the theory goes, women are choosing not to begin a legal career and choosing other professions.

Although this hypothesis may be true for some would-be applicants, the example the story uses is not compelling for that explanation.  The article focuses on the choice by a recent college graduate to forego law school to become an analyst at Morgan Stanley in New York.  That does not seem like a lifestyle choice to me!  The job appears to be in the 2-year analyst, investment banker grooming vein.  (These young professionals were the subject of a NYT article a few weeks ago because they are no longer going to business school after their 2 year stint, but staying in the workforce and going directly into higher-level finance positions.)  The decision of the young woman depicted in the article seemed to be based on opportunity cost more than a choice to lead a more family-friendly lifestyle.

I do think that a hybrid theory that factors in both opportunity cost and work/life balance could be plausible, though.  Say a savvy female college graduate were weighing the decision to go into law or finance.  The graduate has read all the media reports that few women make partner at law firms and also rise to the top ranks of investment banking, particularly women that have children.  The graduate contemplates having a child sometime in her 30s (10 to 15 years down the road) and wants to maximize her earning potential during that 10-15 year span in the event that she exits the workforce at that time.  Going into finance, where she will start collecting a salary immediately and be eligible for bonuses, etc. without incurring any more educational expenses/debt, may be the wise choice.  All of this assumes that she will enjoy both careers equally and that her opportunities to re-enter the workforce at some time are the same.  All of this is speculation, of course, but I think the decision model is more complicated than the article describes.

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I know I am weeks (or months) behind on this topic, but I have been half-following the recent raises of Biglaw firms to 160k or close to it and the varied responses of a few firms.  First, I wanted to make the point that as someone who benefitted from salary hikes in the late 1990s and 2000, the general impression at firms was that these raises did not boost morale.  (Here's a Texas Lawyer story from today saying the same thing.)  Generally, salaries were hiked in response to lateral movement among attorneys and low morale because of higher hours worked.  The true reasons for associate dissatisfaction (lack of job security, unpredictability of schedule, tremendous hours, intense pressure from partners and clients) were never addressed because they were seemingly un-address-able given the law firm business model.  But, some money was thrown at the problem, which in most cases increased the amount each month that was swept into a mutual fund because no one had time to take a vacation or spend more money anyway. 

OK, but enough about that -- I wanted to talk about the firms that have decided that this may be a good time to move away from lock-step associate pay and bonuses.  Incredibly, most large law firms pay associates in the same "class" -- years since graduation -- the same salary and bonus.  In a model that is generally merit-based, pay is not.  Now, there are some slight exceptions:  upon lateralling, some associates bargain to be put in a different "class" based on various factors:  clerkships, prior job experience, MBA, etc.  I did see one associate in the hot, hot period of 1999-2000 lobby for an upward departure by threatening to take an offer from a rival law firm, but I think it backfired on the person because it created such animosity.  And, some firms in raising salaries in 2000 stipulated that those not billing a minimum amount of hours would not receive the full bonus, although the differential was more symbolic than real.  But, in the past month or so, we've seen Howrey & Simon announce a new pay scale that will differentiate associates on salary (see Bill Henderson for a good run-down of that story) and just yesterday Texas firm Winstead (which used to be Winstead Sechrest, but now seems to be Madonna-like and just "Winstead") said that the firm would not increase salaries across the board but instead would create a $25,000 year-end bonus for first-years making $135k.  However, the bonus is merit-based and not intended for everyone.

So, I want to pose the contrarian view that salary differentials could be beneficial to women and any other associates seeking work/life balance.  How can that be?  Won't this give big law firms an excuse to discriminate on the basis of gender and we'll find law firms to be as male-dominated as investment banks with their big discretionary bonuses?  We'll hold on.  Right now, the law firm tournament is pass-fail, only unlike most law school classes, the reality isn't high pass/pass, but more like high fail/fail.  Very few associates pass, or make partner.  The lock-step compensation is defended by saying that the true merit decision comes at partnership determination time.  But few associates like this system.  Why should the choice be to bill more than 90% of your colleagues and make a ton of money or not have a job at all?

I've known a number of female associates who try to pick family-friendly departments in law firms to have a more predictable lifestyle (ERISA, wills & estates, real estate).  But the pressure is immense.  They are in specialities where there aren't enough hours available to give all associates 2500 hours a year, but the expectation is still there.  They are getting paid the same as the folks in corporate who are billing 3000 hours, after all.  But the clients in these practices pore over billing statements, want flat fees and reduced rates, increasing the pressure on those associates in the "cost centers" or "loss leaders."  Not to mention the associates in the high-billable departments who would just like a normal lifestyle.  However, if you are told that if you bill less than 2000 hours you won't be fired but instead will forego your $25k bonus and only make $135k this year, then you may be willing to pay that premium.  The model moves from one where less-than-average hours is prohibited to one where that choice is priced.  Many people I know would be willing to pay that price.  Of course, the system would have to be integrated into the partnership decision, and I'm not sure we know how that will play out.  For example, in the Howrey firm, where associates move up in rank by merit, not by chronology, could an associate stay a "Level 3" for an unlimited number of years?  In short, I think if the model moves away from pass/fail to "pick your price," then it could be a win-win situation.

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I'm always a few days behind in reading the NYT Magazine, so I had already seen this post by Frank Pasquale on an article entitled "Do Workers Have a Fundamental Right to Care for Their Families?  The Latest Front in the Job-Discrimination Battle."  That article focuses on a new twist to gender discrimination claims -- claims that center on job termination or other negative treatment because of the worker's parental responsibilities or even mere parental status.  This theory is either used as part of a Title VII claim or an ADA claim (when the child in question has a disability).  Much of the theoretical work for this litigation position comes from the work of a Hastings law professor, Joan Williams, who wrote Unbending Gender in 2000.  That book gave as possibilities several ways to combat the growing tension between parent workers and employers, and one chapter talked of litigation, even though it conceded that "suing your employer is not the ideal mechanism of social change."  In the article, Williams updates her statement by saying that lawsuits "are the worst possible vehicle for social change, ecept for nothing, and that's where we are right now."

Two aspects of the article were very interesting to me.  One was the description of a study by the Cognitive Bias Working Group, which sent over a thousand resumes to both volunteers and real employers.  (The study appears in the May 2007 issue of the American Journal of Sociology.)  The resumes represented equally qualified applicants, but some resumes signalled that the applicant was a parent.  Here are the results:

Among the volunteers, mothers were consistently viewed as less competent and less committed and were held to higher performance and punctuality standards. They were 79 percent less likely to be hired and, if hired, would be offered a starting salary $11,000 lower than nonmothers. Fathers, by contrast, were offered the highest salaries of all. Meanwhile, in the test run with real-world employers, the hypothetical female applicants without children were more than twice as likely as equally qualified mothers to be called back for interviews.

Second, the article notes that "more than half [of these cases] have prevailed in court -- a success rate significantly higher than that of more conventional employment-discrimination cases, which is below 20 percent."  I am assuming that these success rates are of filed cases, so they include dispositions by motions to dismiss, summary judgment, settlment and trials, although I'm not sure.  Let's assume that a parent discrimination case has a much better success rate in front of a jury than a gender discrimination case.  Why would that be?  I can think of a few factors.  While only a certain percentage of jurors may be women, or working women, all have parents and most probably are parents.  So, it would be hard to seat a jury without sympathetic jurors.  Also, one-fourth of these plaintiffs are male, presumably male fathers.  If the Cognitive Bias Work Study Group's work holds up, then jurors would be subject to the same biases as the volunteers/employers and consider the working fathers' claims as credible and important.  They might also consider the lost wages/employment of the working father to be much more in need of a remedy.  Other thoughts?

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A few weeks ago, Eugene Volokh addressed complaints about the paucity of women panelists at a recent Federalist Society conference.  I responded to one explanation that was related to citation counts and promised to address the topic of gender and conferences generally at a later time.  Well, it is later. . . .

I have often defended blogging as the great academic equalizer by noting that women law professors (or I should say parenting law professors) may find it easier to balance blogging with home life than traveling for conferences.  I have responded to critics of time-intensive blogging that networking through blogging may be a substitute for networking through conferences, which can be costly in terms of time and money.  (This Spring I had a babysitter stay with our kids Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon while Paul and I were at different conferences the same weekend -- not cheap.) 

Perhaps because of the demographics of my field (corporate law), I often go to conferences where women law professors are in the minority.  Last year in fact I was the sole female panelist at a day-long conference with 10 or so speakers.  I've really gotten to where I don't notice much any more.  I was talking about this with some other female corporate law professors, who have decided that when asked to speak at a conference, they also make suggestions of other possible female speakers to be invited (to counteract any network effects similar to the ones that Eugene discussed).  However, I know at my almost all-male conference, many speakers suggested two other female professors who wrote in the field, and they declined.  So, my question to readers is whether women law professors feel that they must pick and choose their conferences more so than their counterparts due to child care responsibilities or other work/life issues.

Obviously, pregnancy takes a female law professor out of conference rotation for at least a month or so before the birth and several afterwards, depending on nursing decisions, etc.  As one of several female law professors I know who took a baby to the meat market, I can attest to doing some wacky things to keep up a travel schedule and be the mother of small children!  My mother-in-law, who lives nowhere near us, is often the one who drives hours to meet me at an airport to take the children while I conference for a few days.  However, blogging is much easier, and more invisible than attending conferences.  Why I could be eight months pregnant right now, and you would never know.

Finally, maybe David or Gordon could tell us what they think the gender mix is in Berlin right now.  Law & Society is usually a fairly diverse conference, but I don't know that many women law professors who were planning on going to Berlin this year. 

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Apparently while we were enjoying the Conglomerate Junior Scholars Workshop yesterday, a conversation was brewing in the blogosphere about the paucity of female panelists at a recent Federalist Society conference.  Eric Muller and Mary Dudziak are upset; Ilya Somin and Eugene Volokh are not.  Eugene follows up today with some statistics that show that although the panels aren't representative of the percentage of either untenured female professors or tenured female professors, the panels are fairly representative of those with the highest citation counts, which would tend to absolve conference organizers who have to use rough proxies to spot scholars in particular fields.  He then asks why the citation counts might ignore female scholars and offers up some theories.

Eugene's post on citation counts reminded me that two years ago I blogged on the number of women article authors in the Harvard Law Review.  One of the reasons we scholars like to get placements in top, top journals is that we think (or at least we say) that more people will read the article, and possibly cite to the artice.  So, the citation count data may be tied somewhat to the authors in the top journals.  If women are underrepresented in the top journals, then they will be cited less, etc.  In 2005, I surveyed the tables of contents of Volume 116 and 117 of the Harvard Law Review and found that female authors were markedly underrepresented.  This morning, I scanned the tables of contents in Volumes 118, 119 and 120 and found the same results.  (As David Brancacccio says, but more about that, after the numbers.)

In Volume 116, the HLR published pieces by 26 authors, including "in memoriam" pieces and book reviews"; 6 of these authors are women.  (23%).  Excluding all pieces except articles, women make up 5 out of 19 authors (26%).  In Volume 117, six women authors were published out of 28 authors (21%); three women article authors were published out of 19 article authors (15%).

This pattern persists and even worsens in the last three volumes as well.  (I did not count "in memoriam" pieces this time.)  In Volume 118, four women authors were published out of 30 authors (13%); three women article authors were published out of 24 article authors (12.5%).  In Volume 119, four women authors were published out of 33 authors (12%); 3 women article authors were published out of 23 article authors (13%).  In Volume 120, six women authors were published out of 35 authors (17%); six women article authors were published out of 32 authors (18.75%).  Note:  Volume 120 is a little different because Issue 5 was dedicated to Judge Richard Posner and contained pieces by 15 authors (two of whom are women).  These pieces are probably not article -length and I assume were solicited.  Excluding Issue 5, Volume 120 contains 17 article authors, 4 of whom are women (23.5%).

Therefore, in the last five volumes (31 issues, excluding Vol. 120, Issue 5) of the HLR, 18 out of 102 article authors were women (17.64%).  Note:  Out of the pool of 18 women authors, only 17 are unique.  One author, Martha Minow, was published twice (three times if we count Vol. 120, Issue 5).  There were also several male authors who published more than once during this period.  In addition, 4 of the 17 women (and one student author) were untenured at the time of publication.  I note this because as Eugene states, about 25% of full professors are women.

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Tyler Cowan at MR reports on an Economist report on an ultimatum game study associating rejection behavior with testosterone levels.  Is this why men never ask for directions?

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The NYT and other newspapers today are printing tributes to Liz Claiborne, who died yesterday at 78.  I will always associate Liz Claiborne clothing with the 1980s, where at least in my hometown, such clothing was very popular.  And even if you think the main brand may not be extremely chic, the company also owns Lucky Jeans, Juicy Couture and Kate Spade brands.  The obituaries point out that Liz Claiborne, Inc. was the first company founded by a woman to break the Fortune 500. 

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Eugene Volokh has issued a blogospheric dare for bloggers who actually menstruate to comment on the new birth control pill that eliminates menstruation.  I can't believe that I'm falling for this; Gordon will surely kick me off the blog.

Specifically, Eugene wonders if there is any credibility to the argument that menstruation bonds women together, similarly to the way in which pregnancy and childbirth bond women together.  Hmmm.  Here are all my thoughts on this off-topic topic.  I'll put them below the fold so that corporate law wonks will be spared -- menstruation has been a below the fold kind of topic until recent years, so consider it an homage.

1.  Yes, pregnancy and childbirth make women part of a very large club whose members have something very important in common.  Consider it like sports for men, or Dungeons and Dragons.  Female culture doesn't have a common theme that most girls' youth revolves around that joins generations of women together other than fertility and childbirth.  I remember finally having something in common with my grandma when I got pregnant.  Menstruation is similar.  When girls begin to menstruate, they do join sort of a club, but it's much more underground.  Once girls begin to menstruate at school, their other friends want to also.  No one wants to be left out of this growing up thing, obviously. 

2.  Menstruation might be more of a bonding thing in this country if the culture were different.  In the U.S., our culture is one of sanitizing and deodorizing must bodily functions.  We shave a lot, bathe a lot, shampoo a lot, powder and perfume a lot, etc.  Menstruation runs against that.  So to some extent, especially among young girls, menstruation is embarrassing.  The onset of menses also comes when girls are the most self-conscious they will ever be, adding to the secrecy and embarrassment.  I'm not sure it has to be that way, though. 

3.  Hasn't any one ever read the Red Tent?

4.  I do think that the natural end of menstruation usually comes with some sadness.  It is an end of an era.  Some women may be liberated by the end of that era.  However, I think in today's age when many women have pushed their childbearing years much closer to their menopausal years, the end of fertility seems to be fairly salient.  When women had their children by 25 or at least 30, menopause 20 or 30 years later may have seemed like a tardy visitor they had been expecting for a long time.  (There was actually a Sex and the City episode about this when three of the four women were menstruating at the same time, but Samantha wasn't, making her fear that she was menopausal.)  Obviously, it's hard to separate the end of menses with thoughts on the aging process generally.

5.  Much conversation has asked "why not" eliminate menstruation, but I'm not sure I've heard a great reason for "why."  Although some women have very painful periods and would have a medical reason for eliminating menstruation, I'm not sure why the average woman would.  Breakthroughs in menstruation products have substantially decreased the muss and fuss of menstruation.  I would suspect that for most American women, their cycles come and go without much thought.

6.   I don't think this pill is really about discomfort, hygiene or convenience.  I think it's about casual sex.  There, I said it.  My co-bloggers can kick me off, and I guess my tenure clock is stalled now.  Menstruation doesn't get in the way of many daily activities any more, like sports or swimming, but it may get in the way of casual sex with people you don't know well.  Who will benefit from this pill?  Not the eighth grade girls of the world who suffer supreme embarrassment by Aunt Flo coming on the days they wear white capri pants, but the grown men and women of the world who may meet each other later that night.  So let's quit couching this pill as "unchaining women from the bathroom."

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We see women around us who re-enter the work force after their children go to school:  teachers, nurses, etc.  These are jobs where workers are in short supply in some communities and I suppose the basic skills don't change rapidly.  (I'm guessing here -- I also have a vision of Jane Fonda returning to work in 9 to 5, but not knowing how to run a copy machine.)  However, no one thinks it's easy for an investment banker or a lawyer to go back to work after five or so years off.  Putting aside biases against employment gaps and the priorities reflected in opting out of the work force, how much does the work change in five years?  I left Skadden nine years ago to go into teaching.  My section isn't even called the same thing.  Does it do the same thing?  Would I be able to hit the ground running?  And forget about me, someone who has been in academia and at least following my industry from a distance.  What about a parent who has been rearing children and occasionally reading the WSJ?

Today's NYT has an article about "opt-in" programs run by large employers and groups designed to ease the re-entry into the work force.  For many, this re-entry is on a contract or part-time basis.  The reporter wonders if these programs are merely window dressing or a true realization that valuable human capital is being untapped.  I would think for a law firm, a parent who had left the firm as a fifth-year associate for a few years would be much easier to retrain than a fresh graduate.  Of course, there would be a negotiation as to pay scale, but I get the sense from most women I know who would like to re-enter the work force that they are willing to be flexible.

Who could run a good opt-in program for lapsed lawyers?  I think law schools would do a lousy job because we aren't in the building of updating information or honing skills.  Perhaps bar associations could have reverse "bridging the gap" programs.  Litigators could take CLE on new discovery rules, etc. and transactional lawyers could catch up on SOX and other developments.

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Barbara Black is asking some interesting questions about the Corporate Practice Commentator's List of the best articles of 2006.  (Congratulations, Gordon!)  Her numbers are intriguing -- why aren't more female law professors articles chosen?  Go to Securities Law Prof and check it out.

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Via Kaimi at Times & Seasons (57%/43%), who is following the strangely reciprocal Feminist Law Professors (43%/57%) -- with a special nod to the Department of Meaningless Statistics -- here is our He-She Ratio:

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Over the weekend, I also noticed Jeff Lipshaw's post on lawyers and knitting.  I thought I would take that idea to jump off the deep end into what could be a hornet's nest.  What do readers think of law professors knitting during faculty meetings, AALS meetings, etc?

I know quite a few people who knit, including one Glom blogger-in-law, so I want all points of view here.  (I know how to knit, but I have not ridden the resurgence in knitting's popularity.)  My first take when seeing this phenomenon was fairly negative, even though one of my friends that I respect very much was the first person I can remember seeing knitting at an academic conference.  She told me that it actually made her pay more attention, and that she retained more of the talk than if she was empty-handed.  I am very fidgety, and I think knitting might be a good, mindless activity for me during workshops and meetings to keep my hands busy.  However, I have only seen women knitting in public, not men, and so I'm torn.  I remember sitting at a AALS session and seeing a woman needlepointing.  I said something to my neighbor like "A women's work is never done.  We must bring our handiwork to the AALS meeting."  Am I just worried about the knitting gender line?

A female law professor friend who does not knit remarked that knitting during a meeting or workshop is not any ruder (from the speaker's perspective) than tapping on a computer during such.  And, while knitting may occupy the hands but leave the attention mostly free, surfing the Internet, checking email, or working on one's own stuff generally does not.  Thoughts?

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Last night I had the pleasure of being a commentator at the University of Illinois Women's Law Society's Symposium, entitled "Don't Embark on Your Legal Career Until You Know:  The Rules of the Game."  I still don't know the rules of the game, but thank goodness for the keynote speaker, Jane Kirenzo Pigott.  Jane, a former partner at Winston & Strawn, is the managing director of R3 Group LLC, which provides consulting services to professional firms on "enhancing an organization's competitive edge by allowing the organization to utilize, retain and promote more fully its key human resource assets."  For those who couldn't be there, I thought I would list some of the speaker's "rules" and perhaps provide some commentary on them.  Some I think are more incisive than others, and some seem inconsistent, but here they are:

Someone has to stay and lead.  I think this is right.  Jane ponted out the statistics to show that law firms have had plenty of women in the associate pipeline for decades, but few stay to reach the top.  Unfortunately, those that want to stay carry with them the baggage of those who have left, so they are presumed to be temporary also.  Every woman who stays in a law firm and moves up the pipeline does a mitzvah for those who follow.  (This from someone (me) who left, of course.)

There is no Prince.  This point was somewhat a rehashing of the Cinderella Complex:  no one is going to come rescue you, so take your career seriously and provide for yourself.  However, I think Jane also meant it in a non-romantic way.  She said that at work, "if you exceed expectations, no one will take care of you."  I think her point was that female associates have a fear of exceeding expectations, but that this fear is misplaced.  I guess my spin would be "Are you Scarlett or Melanie?"  Sure, everyone loves Melanie and takes care of her because she's so weak and fragile, but who dies and who survives?

Unfortunately, on the romantic side, I think there is a corollary here.  At some point, your quasi-Prince may come, who is more Prince than frog and quite smashing.  This is when the hard decisions will have to be made about career and family.  We need more rules for what happens when your (almost) Prince does come.

Play to Win.  Jane made a point that women play to lose.  I'm not sure what this means exactly.  I know that when I was in practice, we could sort people by whether they were "short-timers" or "long-timers."  Short-timers acted exactly as you would think.  Of course, long-timers get better work.  Also, I know that a lot of people that I started with would say "You know, I don't care if I make partner."  I never knew if they meant this or if they were just hedging their bets.  I did know, though, that even if someone didn't want to stay and make partner, they should act like it until the day they left.

There are no role models.  Here, Jane suggested having a number of mentoring relationships because no one person will be an exact role model.  She pointed to generation theory to show that Gen Y, who is now graduating, will be looking to Baby Boomers to be role models, and Baby Boomers aren't very good role models.  A lot of the symposium was spent talking about female role models and networking.  I had to admit that in practice, I had no female role models.  I had female friends, but there was no female partner taking me under her wing.  First, there just weren't that many female partners, and those that were there weren't really like me.  I had lots of very good male role models and mentors, though.

Be a player, not a spectator.  Jane reported that she had been in meetings where associates coming up for partner were put in piles, one was the "worker bee" pile and the other was the partner material pile.  She said most women were put in the "worker bee" pile because the partners would say, "Don't know her."  So, be sure and ask for assignments that give you visibility, and be noticed.  The only thing that I could add here is that in transactional practice, women sometimes have superior organizational skills and so get put on tasks that are very "behind-the-scenes," like running the closing table.  It's great to be noticed for your strengths, but you also have to be in roles where you have client contact and responsibility for documents, etc.  Otherwise, whenever there's a 50-state research question or a huge document-intensive deal, you'll be picked to basically be the stage manager.  I remember someone pointing out a female senior associate like that to me and saying, "She's too good of an associate to make partner."

You don't get what you deserve, you get what you ask for.  That's self-explanatory, I guess. 

Bluff.  When Jane tells women to bluff, she's basically telling them to at least get close to assessing their own strengths realistically.  She provided data from a Harvard Law School survey that when asked to assess performance, women consistently underassessed themselves and men overassessed themselves.  Not only be aware of your own worth, but tell others of your successes.  Your successes must be visible to others, and only you control that. 

Life Isn't Fair.  Also self-explanatory.

Don't Cry at the Office.  I thought this was funny because I had recently read a post of Feminist Law Professors entitled There's No Crying in Law School!  Jane acknowledged this was sort of a stupid rule because if you could control your crying, then you wouldn't be crying!  But, she assured the audience that everyone would someday cry at the office and to try to mitigate the harm by asking those present to leave and by not running to the bathroom.  Almost every woman I know cried during their first year of practice.  At Baker Botts, we were lucky enough to have a magic button on our desk that automatically shut or door, locked it and turned on a red light to signal "do not disturb."  I'm sure the purpose of that button was not so that associates could have a good cry in private, but it worked. 

Utilize Leverage.  This rule related to using the "transactional economy."  When someone asked you a favor, have a return favor in mind.  Jane asserted that men are better at this quid pro quo market than women, who will do favors for free.  So, if someone comes and asks you to fill out a table that the firm bought at some charity fundraiser, say sure and next weekend I can come along when you take that client out golfing.

Celebrate Instead of Dwell.  Celebrate successes visibly and don't dwell on failure.

Understand the Impact of Nonverbal Communication.  I think this rule was about dressing the part. 

Define Meritocracy.  I think I blanked here for a minute.

Let's Define What Success Is.  This rule is slightly inconsistent with the Rule that Someone Has to Stay and Lead because it encourages alternatives to the partner pipeline.  However, I think Jane was right in that women have to support each other and not bad-mouth other women's choices.  Unfortunately, I think most women get so invested in their choice either to stay and make partner or go part-time or be a full-time mom that we tend to think the choice has some moral element to it.  Therefore, other choices are immoral.  This has to stop.

All in all, it was a very fun symposium, and I'm grateful for the Women's Law Society for letting me be a commentator, along with Julie Mandanas (partner, Jenner & Block); Kara Cenar (partner, Bell Boyd & Lloyd), and Lauren Wolven (Brown Brothers Harriman Trust Co.).

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Yes, or at least among professional tennis players, says a paper by Hebrew University's Daniele Paserman.  See the write up by Slate's Steven Landsburg.  Paserman assigns an "importance" to each point in the match, and "choking" means committing more unforced errors on the most important points.  Several competing theories--that fatigue correlates with both important points (played late in the match) and unforced errors, for example--are refuted.  It'll be interesting to see the peer review on this!

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I know Christine has blogged before about giving advice to law students, particularly female law students. However, Christine’s post on back-up childcare reminded me of a recent conversation I had with a female law student. She explained to me that most of her law school classmates had made the decision to have children while in law school—not only to avoid having to take time off while at a law firm, but also so they would not have to wait an inordinate amount of time before starting a family.

I must admit I was taken aback. Had I missed that piece of advice about law firm life? Of course, I did not know if the student was talking about her small group of friends or if in fact this kind of mind-set was prevalent among law students more generally. And if this does represent a more general trend, what impact will it have on law firms? It would suggests that the need for “family friendly services” is more critical than ever because more people will enter law firm practice with childcare issues as an important concern. The trade-off, I gather, is that students believe that their decision to have children early will enable them to stay on the partnership track (i.e., not take time off for having a child), thereby increasing their chance for success at the firm while decreasing the likelihood of departing. Of course this buys into the presumption that taking time off to have kids is the primary reason why women fail to make it to the partnership ranks. And while this is part of the picture, it is not the entire story. By the same token, if this is a real trend, it would be interesting to see if in fact making the decision to have children before entering the law firm has any real impact on a person’s experience at the firm.

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An attorney-mom friend of mine emailed me an article in the Austin Business Journal reporting that Fulbright & Jaworski LLP announced this month that the firm will offer its employees 80 hours annually of in-home or out-of-town care for children or seniors.  This policy will also allow employees to travel with nursing children and have care provided in the visited city.  The F&J announcement is here.  The firm portrays this program as both pro-family and pro-client, as "client needs do not stop when relatives are sick."  This makes sense -- everyone loses when an attorney stays at home with a child too sick to go to day care or school (but otherwise healthy), the firm loses billable hours, the client loses accessibility and productivity, and the attorney loses peace of mind and more.

Last week, the WSJ had an article on the high costs and low supply of back-up child care.  (Here are some comments that showed up on the WSJ blog about the article.)  When our first child was born, we chose a nanny because without family nearby, we knew we had no back-up plan if our sick child couldn't go to daycare.  In the first month, our nanny threw her back out, leaving us without a back-up plan!  We called a back-up provider, but they couldn't send someone for the first day, so (I'm not kidding) the mother of a friend of ours kept our infant.  Teaching law school is definitely more flexible than practicing law, but I have to admit that once during a preschool holiday, my friend and Marquette colleague Andrea Schneider kept 2-year-old Luke occupied at her computer while I taught my 50 minute class.  (My husband's suggestion was to use the health club's in-house childcare while he went to a hearing in the courthouse next door.  CPS?)  So, back-up child care can be quite a key commodity.

And large employers are definitely lower-cost providers of these services than individuals who have no idea when or how often these needs will arise.  Retaining services for a pool seems to be the most efficient avenue for everyone concerned.

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Both today's WSJ and NYT have editorials that ruminate on gender issues in the context of the firing of both HP ex-CEO Carly Fiorina and HP ex-Chairperson Patricia Dunn.  The WSJ article, Why Gender Plays a Role in H-P Drama, doesn't make much sense unless the reader has either read Fiorina's memoir, Tough Choices, or Maureen Dowd's piece in today's NYT (TimesSelect, but available on Westlaw:  How Carly Lost Her Gender Groove).  These writings tell us that Fiorina, who earlier in her career claimed that sexism had never affected her, now believes that she was the victim of sexist attitudes in the media and in the workplace. 

Although the title suggests that the WSJ article will speculate that one or more of these women were treated differently, and by implication, more harshly, because of gender, the article does not say  anything like that.  Instead, the article focuses on how the two women's actions were the products of gender, not actions toward them.  Although the article does not explicitly say so, the article seems to make a connection between the fact that Fiorina and Dunn are women and that they both declined to resign gracefully or take responsibility for the actions of others arguably under their control.  The article argues that these women have decided to act like victims and by doing so, have betrayed other women.  The article even splashes around some of its own gender stereotyping -- characterizing Fiorina's and Dunn's relationship as a "sisterhood," but describing their infighting and resistance to stand up for one another.  The author seems to believe that their refusal to resign gracefully is akin to a hysterical hissy fit unbecoming to professional women.

The author seems impressed with HP CEO Mark Hurd's statement to Congress that "the buck stops here," even suggesting that Dunn "keeps bucking."  I suppose this is the author's way of saying that Dunn should quit whining and act like a man.  And of course, it's easy for Hurd to say this -- he took over after the investigation was underway.  He's accepting the symbolic responsibility "buck" because he knows the legal responsibility "buck" isn't coming his direction.  In other cases where men accused of having knowledge of wrongdoing refuse to acknowledge responsibility over others, are these men accused of betraying their gender? 

Why do we have to criticize women's actions not as their individual actions but as actions that reflect badly on their gender?  Did Tom Perkins' actions as a rogue director and mediocre romance novelist reflect badly on his gender?  On the venture capital industry?  Why would we expect Fiorina and Dunn to be any more supportive of each other than Hurd and Perkins?

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In reading the latest issue of the Texas Bar Journal, I noticed a brief reference to "the All-Woman Supreme Court, which was appointed to hear only one case."  Intrigued, a researched a bit further.  In 1925, the Texas Supreme Court was poised to decide whether to hear an appeal from the El Paso Court of Civil Appeals concerning whether a fraternal organization called Woodmen of the World owned two tracts of land in El Paso under a "secret trust."  However, all three Supreme Court justices were members of this organization and so were not permitted to review the case.  Indeed, almost all male attorneys at the time were members of this organization.  WOW was a fraternal organization, but also provided life insurance.  Because the outcome of the case could conceivably raise premiums for its members, any member was disqualified from hearing the case.  (In the early 90s at Texas law school, there was a small, all-male social group called the Woodmen.  I'm not sure if it was related, and it doesn't appear to exist now, at least on the website.)

Governor Pat Neff, after his many attempts to appoint male jurists to hear the case were frustrated by the same conflict, decided to name three women to serve on a special Supreme Court to hear just this one case.  (Governor Neff was at the end of his term; one can speculate on whether his decision would have been different if he were standing for re-election.)  Under the Texas constitution, justices had to have at least seven years of legal experience.  This requirement may have been another stumbling block because the first female law school graduates in Texas had only graduated eleven years earlier in 1914.  After two of the first three nominees were disqualified on that basis (having only practiced six years each), the three justices were Hortense Ward, Hattie Henenberg and Ruth Brazzil. 

Ward had passed the bar exam without a law degree in 1910 and was the first woman to have passed the exam.  She was politically active and had drafted the bill which eventually allowed women to vote in Texas elections in 1918.  Henenberg had received her license to practice law in 1916 and was in general practice alone.  Brazzil passed the bar exam in 1912 after attending the University of Texas School of Law as a "special student."  In 1925, two of the justices were married, but whether their husbands were members of WOW is not mentioned.

The court met a week over being constituted and voted to review the case.  The appeal was heard a few weeks later and the court upheld the court of appeals, finding that WOW owned both tracts of land.  (Johnson v. Darr, 114 Tex. 516 (1925)).  The court was then dissolved.

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Eric Goldman sent me this story about an article on Forbes.com that was yanked off the site for awhile:  Don't Marry Career Women by Michael Noer.  In the article, Noer patches together a lot of studies to arrive at the conclusion that husbands "run a higher risk of having a rocky marriage" if they marry a woman who makes over $30k a year and works over 35 hours a week.  This article was put back online next to a companion piece:  Don't Marry a Lazy Man by Elizabeth Corcoran.  Both articles can be read here.  Noer claims many things:  having to choose between family and career mean that career women are unhappy with whichever choice; marrying a career woman is dangerous because "highly educated people are more likely to have had extra-marital sex;" and that the incidence of divorce is higher when both spouses work.  Noer refers to Becker's work on divisons of labor within marriages and concludes that both spouses working is dangerous and will cause your house to be dirtier.  How about another industrial organization theory:  outsourcing.  Surely Noer has heard of Merry Maids.

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The NYT Magazine has an article on Meredith Viera, who is leaving her lead position at The View to sit beside Matt Lauer at Today.  (The catch line on the magazine calls this new job the most sought after job in television.)  The focus of the story is on the choices Viera has made to balance her career and caring for her three kids and her husband, who has MS.  The most interesting part of that balance has been told in her other places -- how she attempted to work part-time on 60 Minutes, and how that never worked out for either her or the producers.  The disconnect in expectations is striking not only in the wideness of that disconnect, but also in its familiarity.  If you have ever tried to go part-time at a large law firm, Viera's story will resonate with you.

Viera, who was offered the job weeks before her first child was born, negotiated for a salary less than half of what her 60 MInutes colleagues were making in exchange for doing half of the segments they were doing.  That sounds reasonable and similar to the deals that attorneys attempt to make with their firms 80% pay for 80% work, 60% pay for 60% work.  Except that 60 MInutes didn't hire someone else to produce the other 10 segments and were obviously not going to have fewer weekly episodes.  And, the producers expected Viera to be onsite during regular working hours, even moving her office so that her comings and goings would be more visible.  The producer is quoted as saying he always assumed she would work full-time.  When the time came to renegotiate her contract, Viera was told she could be full-time or nothing.  She was told that the other guys were tired of picking up her work.  (How could it be "her work" when she wasn't being paid to do "that work"?)  She chose nothing.

How does this breakdown of expectations occur?  In the law firm context, I have had many friends try part-time schedules only to declare them a myth.  They take a cut in pay, but the work keeps coming, as do the hours.  Perhaps its because the assignment of work is not centralized.  Maybe it's because the person negotiating the deal is not the person parcelling the work.  Maybe it's because 80% of everything is still everything.  Do attorneys in these negotiations just hear the words "reduced hours" and nothing else, while managing attorneys just hear the words "reduced pay" and nothing else?  In my experience, the attorney ends up very jaded and cynical and the firm ends up swearing never to make special deals anymore.  Everyone feels abused.

This is not a post about parents being entitled to special consideration because of their home situation.  This is a post about parties negotiating at arms length for a particular job at a particular salary and then being expected to live up to the norms, not the contract.

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"Our regressions on a random sample of 4,227 life scientists over a 30-year period show that women faculty members patent at about 40 percent of the rate of men."

This is from a recent paper by Waverly W. Ding, Fiona Murray, and Toby E. Stuart. What explains the difference? This is a very short paper, and the causation issue is not developed extensively, but here are some possibilities explored by the authors:

• Productivity, social networks, scientific field, and employer attributes all affect patenting levels, but even after controlling for all of these, the authors found that gender matters. A lot.

• Do men and women engage in qualitatively different kinds of research? The authors suggest, "if women are risk averse in their research choices, there may be a gender difference in research 'patentability'." The authors look at "scholarly impact" (measured by citation count) and find only a small gender effect, with women actually ahead of men.

• Based on interviews with scientists, the authors suggest two other explanations for the gender gap in patents: (1) female scientists had fewer industry contacts than their male counterparts, and (2) women more often expressed a concern that pursuing commercial opportunities might hinder their university careers.

• The authors observe a substantial generational gap. Their data go back 30 years, and senior female scientists were much less likely to engage in patenting than senior male scientists, but that gap has narrowed.

• This was interesting: "[r]egardless of gender, those [who] experienced patenting during training were undaunted by the challenges of combining academic and commercial science." So experience in training seems to wipe out the gender gap, but men are more inclined than women to patent in the absence of training experience.

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The NYT has another lengthy feature on professional women, this time focusing on investment bankers. The script is familiar: investment banking requires long hours; women try to balance demands from work and family ... and many fail; investment banks promise to change, but change is hard. This same story has been written about law, medicine, accounting, politics, and every other profession. (Is politics a "profession"?)

But here is something new, from business schools:

"It’s hard to work for four years, go to business school, spend three years slaving away in an investment bank or consulting firm and then try to leave to start a family," said Thomas Caleel, director of admissions and financial aid at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. "They haven’t achieved the seniority they need at that point."

To try to counter this trend, Wharton and other business schools are focused on recruiting younger women. Wharton’s incoming class this fall will have twice as many students with zero to four years of work experience as it did last year, partially because of more applications from that demographic but also in an attempt to get women into business sooner.

Many business schools require work experience, but the importance of this requirement has been questioned in recent years. (See here, for example, describing a study showing that "students with more work experience did not emerge with significantly higher grades or greater starting salaries. Nor did the students report much more job satisfaction after graduation.") The justification for the requirement is both pedagogical (people with work experience understand more about what they are studying and contribute more to the learning environment) and professional (people with work experience make a faster transition to full-time employment). In light of these supposed benefits, is "get[ting] women into business sooner" a good justification for reducing or waiving the requirement of work experience? (Should we assume that the requirement is also reduced or waived for men? The article was not clear on this point.)

As far as I know, no law school has a work experience requirement, though work experience may enhance an applicant's attractiveness to the admissions committee. Having taught in an evening program at Lewis & Clark, I am convinced of the pedagogical value of prior work experience, even when the work has no direct connection to law. I wonder why law schools never developed an expectation of work experience?

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For our readers who were not lucky enough to attend Friday's "Blogging:  Scholarship or Distraction?" panel (or who were lucky enough to leave early), you missed quite a surreal free-for-all at the end of the Q&A session.  The preceding panel was great, with Larry Solum speaking bullishly on blogging, but more importantly on broader technological advances such as SSRN, Bepress, and Google, Vic Fleischer speaking optimistically, but cautiously, and Randy Barnett expressing the (qualified) view that blogging was good for senior scholars, dangerous for junior scholars.  (Paul Caron has an outline of all three remarks here.) 

However, during the end of the Q&A session, the topic turned to women and blogging, beginning with the question "Why aren't more women blogging," which led to questions such as "Why aren't any women on this panel?," "What does Christine do with her children?" and then, "What do these men on the panel do with their children?"  (Only one person on the panel had children, and they are grown, so that question was poorly researched.)  This panel will be podcast at some point, so I will go back and listen to see if I actually heard what I thought I heard.

Below, the fold, I will give my reasons for why, at the present time, my interest has waned in the "women and blogging question." 

1.  Mere disparities in number of men and women engaging in blogging is not due to any insidious discrimination or hierarchical structure.

Although if one found disparities in the number of women and men being admitted to law school, graduating from law school, being hired at certain jobs or being promoted at them then one would have reason to consider some sort of discrimination on the part of the decisionmakers, this situation is not analogous.  In blogging, there is no gatekeeper or decisionmaker restricting access to blogging.  Unless Typepad is dumber than we think, anyone who wants to have a blog can have one in about 15 minutes.  Any disparity among genders must be due to something else.

2.  Mere disparities in number of men and women engaging in blogging is not due to restricted access to the resources of blogging.

Blogging requires little capital, education, or skills.  So, even if women were being denied access to capital or to educational opportunities, women could still blog.  Women would not have to petition a dean for money or go to a bank or even ask the dean for research support.  Some blogging platforms are free, and most are cheap.  The barriers to entry of blogging are as close to zero as one can imagine.  The questioners at the panel referred to time, and free time could be seen as a barrier to entry to blogging.  However, I have come to believe that we all make time-based choices and we can make time for new activities if we want to do so.  I don't piddle; I don't drink coffee or do the NYT crossword except on airplanes.  I don't watch TV now that Rome is over and I exercise just enough not to die.  This leaves me some time to blog.

3.  Mere disparities in number of men and women engaging in blogging is not due to discrimination by consumers.

Even if no one would read a woman's blog or link to it, that blog would still survive.  Unlike a restaurant or store that needs customers to survive, because the costs of running a blog are so low and the financial advantage of readers/linkers negligible (notwithstanding ads), a blog can survive on the desire of the author alone.  Even if there exists a propensity for men to blog and to link to other men, this should not foreclose women from entering the blogosphere or for remaining in the blogosphere.

4.  I am beginning to think that the disparity may be due to something called a "preference."

Marketers make zillions of dollars a year recognizing that women like some movies, TV shows, books, magazines, and food items, and that men like others.  There is some overlap, but generally there are preference differences between genders.  Why is this hard to accept?  I worked at Baskin-Robbins for a year, and every 16-year old BR employee can guess what kind of ice cream a 35-year woman is going to order.  (In 1986, this was Pralines & Cream.)  We didn't think too hard about why more women than men liked this flavor, and I never thought there was something insidious in the way women were socialized to believe that they like it.  Maybe more men then women like to blog.  What's so hard to understand about that?

5.  It may not always be this way.

As Randy Barnett pointed out, blogging is a safer choice for senior law professors than junior law professors.  Dan Solove's census (version 3.0) doesn't distinguish between ranks, but it is conceivable that more tenured persons blog than untenured.  Because there are more male tenured persons than female, then the numbers both aren't surprising and should be subject to change as time goes on.

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Michael Gurian has some interesting commentary in WaPo about how our education system fails young boys. Here is the take-home lesson:

Beginning in very early grades, the sit-still, read-your-book, raise-your-hand-quietly, don't-learn-by-doing-but-by-taking-notes classroom is a worse fit for more boys than it is for most girls.

I have heard this argument before, and my own family's experience could serve as a nice case study at the elementary school level. Although Gurian claims to notice the effects among college students, I don't perceive much gender difference in law school (at least in terms of grade performance). At this level, the biggest change over the past 15 years is that gender is no longer a diversity factor in admissions.

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A few days ago, Dan Markel brought up (again) the fact that most blogs have a high male-to-female ratio.  One of the comments left me reeling (and thinking).  The female commenter used a term that I had previously only associated with litigators and bond traders (via Liar's Poker) to describe male bloggers and suggested that female law professors do not feel the need to become part of a medium that is 90% swaggering B.S. and 10% valuable analysis.  That's harsh.  We try to keep the B.S./analysis ratio here about even, but who knows?  (Note:  the comment has been deleted, but other commenters have tried to paraphrase what was a valuable, although PG-13, comment)

Given the talk in the blogosphere this week about tenure and blogging, my working hypothesis is that female law professors are more risk-averse than male law professors and that blogging while untenured is a high-risk activity.  Whether female law professors are empricially tenured at a different rate than men, there may be a perception among women that obtaining tenure is trickier and requires a more conservative path.  Like I said, a working hypothesis.

Today, guest blogger Marcy Peek has taken up the quest for answers at Prawfs.

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Ann Althouse today blogs about a Glenn Reynolds article on why 135 women graduate with a bachelor's degree each year for every 100 men who do.  These bloggers focus on anti-male attitudes in universities that may have a backlash effect that discourage men.  However, the USA Today article that Prof. Reynolds cites points out that the missing men may be in prisons (5 million men in the prison system compared with 7.3 million men the same age in college) or may have dropped out in high school.  So, the more plausible thesis may be that boys are turned off in high school, not in college by the existence of women's centers and women's studies with no masculine analogue.  Perhaps if someone finds statistics that males enroll at an equal rate but drop out at a higher rate, that theory would be more plausible.  This stark 135/100 statistic doesn't even tell us where the imbalance is -- is there a gender imbalance at elite schools, where anti-male sentiment may be high, or at less prestigious, regional institutions where students choose between education and skilled labor jobs?  LSAT test takers are generally 50/50 male/female, so I would extrapolate from that cross-section to guess that the gender imbalance is not found at elite institutions or institutions preparing the bulk of their students for advanced degrees.

The Chronicle of Higher Education website lists data from 2002-03 that backs up this 135/100 claim; B.A. degrees in all fields were conferred in the following numbers:  to men, 573,079; to women, 775,424.  In the categories, the biggest bubbles of women seem to be in education, nursing, social work, linguistics, and psychology.  Interestingly, business degrees seem equally split.  The USA Today article had a scary take on the gross 135/100 statistic:  "The loss of educated workers also means the country will be less able to compete economically."  However, the overall number of educated workers has not declined, nor has the number of men getting degrees in business, engineering, etc.  The portent of the statistic seems to be that men are not attracted to teaching, nursing, or counseling, but women increasingly are.  This could also have negative effects, but probably different effects than the author of the article intended.  I do not know exactly how much the average teacher, nurse or social worker makes per year, but it may be that males would be more attracted to a skilled job that required no degree that paid the same amount or more -- plumber, electrician, contractor.

All this being said, I do wonder for my own little boy about possible backlash from female empowerment.  We love to watch shows like Kim Possible and Wild Thornberries, which showcase strong, smart, amazing little girls, but these heroines tend to have dorky boy sidekicks.  Will there be an imbalance of role models before the pendulum swings again?

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Last week's Economist had a cover story called The Conundrum of the Glass Ceiling, which was a fairly unremarkable report updating reports from 1995 that although women make up 50% of mid-level ranks at corporations, women make up some eight percent in the higher ranks.  The numbers are nearly the same as they were ten years ago and the reasons are the same, blah, blah, blah.  But one sentence was attention-grabbing, but maybe not for the author's intended reason:

Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm that monitors departing chief executives in America, found that 0.7% of them were women in 1998, and 0.7% of them were women in 2004.

I'm very glad that the .7 number didn't change. If it had gone down or up, my first reaction would have been "ouch."  (Maybe that's just me.)

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There's an article in the WSJ today about female CEOs who have babies during their reign.  Not all the portraits are pretty:  women in hospital rooms closing deals via phone right before the meds are administered, one CEO not accommodating requests for time off for family for employees because "she puts the company first," and virtual maternity leaves.  None of this seems like a sign of gender equality to me.

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