Women in Law School Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Women in Law School - Research Paper Example Instead, women have to face many challenges in order to find success in an environment which one would consider to be extremely hostile to them. This is the reason why there is need for the continued use of affirmative action to support women who would like to get into this field, to ensure that women are not only successful in getting admitted in law schools, but also that they are treated as partners to their male counterparts rather than as subordinates. While in the United States, affirmative action has largely worked to bring women into the male dominated field of law, more still needs to be done to ensure that even more women are interested in it and that once they get there, they are able to get fair treatment. There has been, in recent years, support for women to get into the field of law, and most of this support has come from other women in the field. It has been suggested that the best way of encouraging more women to get into the field is through giving more women opportu nities to fill up available leadership roles in law schools. Such a move would ensure that the voice of women is heard in the field and further, it will provide them with the opportunity for further advancement. Furthermore, it has been stated that the best way to deal with the problems that women face in law school and after is to build awareness that bias against women in law is still immensely strong and that this matter should be addressed. Literature Review McGinley (99) in her article states that there is still quite a large gap in the gender divide in the faculties of law schools all over the country. Not only do the women who work in law schools have to do jobs which are considered to be feminine by their male counterparts, but they also have to teach courses which many would consider to have been female-identified courses. McGinley argues that the leadership positions in law schools have been unfairly distributed, with women getting the lesser share than men. She states tha t while there are almost no women in any of the available leadership positions in law schools, men dominate nearly all of these positions, with eighty percent of the deans being men. Furthermore, men have been found to teach courses which can be considered to be prestigious as well as male-identified; furthering the rift between the sexes in law schools. She states that women have to go through differential expectations from their colleagues as well as their students and often have to bear the brunt of their male counterparts' intimidating behaviour at work. McGinley, in this article makes use of manhood studies and other research that has been conducted in the social sciences to make an identification of the gendered structures, practices, and traits that have come to bring harm to women professors practising law. She sets out to provide a hypothetical context that attempts to make an explanation of the reasons why women do not enjoy status equality in the legal field do not compar ed to their male counterparts. While many of the practices, which are conducted towards women in law schools, appear to be gender-neutral, they end up accomplishing the very opposite, because it works to propagate stereotypes and isolation which has been found to be harmful to women. The article works to reveal the gendered nature of the structures and practices of law schools, especially in administration, and sets out to challenge the belief of natural difference as a cause for the disproportion between men and women law professors. The conclusion of the study conducted in this article is that it is only through exposing these gender biased practices