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“You Don’t Need The Money—You Have a Nice Engagement Ring”

Growing up I loved watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show on Nick-at-Nite.  Mary Richards, the show’s protagonist, was a single woman in her early 30s working as the associate producer of a nightly news show in Minneapolis in the early 1970s.  In one episode, she learns that she is making $50 less per week than […]

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Gendered Code Words: Recent Study Examines the “Abrasiveness Trap”

When Jill Abramson was fired from her position as Executive Editor of The New York Times a few months ago, the Times denied that gender had anything to do with it. They pointed to issues with her management style; apparently Abramson was “bossy” and “pushy” – labels that are rarely assigned to male executives. As […]

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Women and Law School: Back to the Future

We start this post with the story of a solitary figure, someone who – like the lone protester facing the tanks of Tiananmen – decides to fight mountainous odds: in this case, centuries of gender bias against women. The year is 1875; the venue: Supreme Court of the State of Wisconsin. Our protagonist-heroine is “Miss […]

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Biology Isn’t Destiny, Or Pregnant Lawyer v. “Working Mother”

As a man, my spouse didn’t have the option of trying to get pregnant. I was the one with options. For me, among those options, pregnancy felt like the least complicated, even the second time, when I feared but didn’t know for sure that I might face the unremitting sickness yet again. By contrast, we […]

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Uncomfortable Conversations

In “Is there a legal case for work-life balance?” published last week in Fortune, Caroline Fairchild raises the theory that federal anti-discrimination laws may mandate that workplaces have work-life balance. As she correctly notes, U.S. employment laws prohibit company policies that disproportionately affect one group unless the policies have a “business necessity.”  For example, an employer […]

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The Morning Dilemma Every Professional Woman Faces

As I scan the subway each morning on my ride to midtown, I cannot help but notice the stark differences in the way that women and men dress for work. Almost every man is in a dark suit or khakis with a light-colored button down. Women, on the other hand, tend to be dressed in […]

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A Balancing Act—Heels in the Workplace

This post is the first segment of a two-part post on women’s attire in the workplace. Some women love them; some hate them; and some choose to bear with them. But beyond personal preference, heels have become a common and often an expected part of a woman’s professional attire. This was not necessarily true even […]

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“You and I” are #Flawless

Recently, there has been a surge of “feminist” videos and lyrics in pop culture.  This effort to incorporate messages surrounding the role of women in society into mass media has been received by an audience far broader than the traditional women’s studies set. These videos can also be viewed as a commentary on women’s lives […]

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Gendered Social Norms and Access to New Technologies

Google’s 2013 public release of the wearable technology Google Glass has added another dimension to the way we, as humans, use and integrate technology into our everyday lives.  “The Glass” is part of a new line of immersive technologies that seamlessly integrates with its wearers’ experiences of the world.  For example, instead of having to […]

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Reasoning Beats Cussing: Or, Your Demographic is Not Your Destiny

I’m a well-weathered veteran of the lawsuit wars, with nearly 35 years of experience under my fluctuating beltline. For most of my professional life, I’ve played David to Goliath. My clients are employees victimized by some of this country’s largest corporations. On behalf of these clients, and with some measure of success, I’ve sued corporate […]

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