mothers AND lawyers?

From the comments section on cbc.ca: Georgie Binks article on women and the legal profession (http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_binks/20040308.html) draws attention to a problem that has been acknowledged for a long time, and yet no one I have heard of has found a way to fix it. Yes, there are super-women who are able to do it all- to succeed at work and at home and not feel like they are missing out or neglecting either arena, but those women are the exception that prove the rule. The real problem, as Georgie pointed out, is billable hours. Billable hours operate against women with families because of systemic discrimination. On the face of it, billable hours is gender-neutral- it is just part of the profession and it is how financial success and status within their firm and the profession in general is ranked. It means being willing to put in a lot of work and time, but of course the privileges of the profession come with that. But it is a fact that women with families, even with partners who contribute a lot, almost invariably end up doing more of the child care and housework on top of their professional careers. And even though things have come a long way and many men pitch in to help, the truth is that the majority of male lawyers (and not female) have a partner who is willing to do most of the domestic work for them, allowing them to put in the kind of hours they need to get ahead. This means that a system of billable hours discriminates against women- perhaps not intentionally or with malice- but it is an effects-based discrimination nonetheless and this has been recognized by our courts as just as unacceptable as intentional discrimination. Of course, the real point is that most professional women who become mothers WANT to be very involved in their child's life and wouldn't want to give that up. Add to this the catch-22 that faces all working women- if you leave work, you risk not being able to come back, you lose status, you are criticized for betraying some archaic notion of feminism; but if you go back to work immediately, you're a bad mother and selfish for caring as much or more about your job as your child. Many women love their jobs and don't want to lose them. But many women also love their children and want to be there for them. Unfortunately, in spite of the promise and potential of the women's movement, it is really very difficult to have it all. The problem isn't that women aren't cut out for the workforce, or for the legal profession- it's that the workforce and the legal profession aren't cut out for us. The whole system of billable hours needs to be seriously overhauled. Why should a man who never took a year off for paternity leave be made partner before a woman who did even though she has consistently produced better quality work and results, though less time? The emphasis on quantity over quality means that the legal profession is an uneven playing field for women. The system of billable hours also means that the average man is NOT going to take any paternity leave and are NOT going to be as involved in their children's lives. I'm sure many of them wish they could be but the atmosphere in most of the corporate and legal world is not a family-oriented one. This is a real problem for society in general- there are increasing levels of depression, violence, unsafe sex, substance-abuse, learning difficulties and any other number of problems with the younger generations of Canadians today. These kids NEED their parents to be involved with their lives- their mothers and their fathers. It is cliche, but these children are our future and if the working world doesn't recognize the importance of the family, then things are only going to get worse and more women are going to leave their positions of respect and status and wealth (in our society, stay-at-home or part-time job parents are in general considered lacking in all of these, which is a tragedy) to be there for their children. All of which means that the working world is really missing out. Women have so much to offer and their potential is not being tapped. Its time for a change- in our attitudes, in our practices, in our lives. Deborah Jorgensen