Understanding Issues of Gender and Sexuality in the Workplace

Let's take a moment to consider just some of the factors that can stand in the way of both women and out LGBT attorneys advancing in America's largest law firms. For the women, there's the obvious and age-old gender wage gap, not to mention the increasing gender disparity as one looks higher up any hierarchy. For many sociologists, much of that imbalance may be attributable to motherhood and the perceptions, assumptions, and biases that rightly or wrongly accompany it for employers. As John Hagan and Fiona Kay observed in their book Gender in Practice, "women's occupational careers have been characterized as bimodal or M-shaped, with reduced participation in economic activity during childbearing years," which leads to the conclusion that "these discontinuities in employment may affect  advancement through 'foregone appreciation' in experience and opportunities... as well as through discriminatory treatment." In other words, as far as employers are concerned in this characterization, women make a trade-off between their careers and their families when they become mothers, and the time and energy that they spend raising children is time that is typically necessary on the road to becoming a viable candidate for partnership. Furthermore, women are seen as less committed to their jobs when they have families, as it is assumed that family responsibilities will be prioritized over the firm.

            The question of whether or not it is true that these perceptions are held by employers more generally has been put to the test by Shelley Correll, a professor of sociology at Stanford University. Correll's work has found substantial biases against mothers, using studies with identical presentations-either scenes of acting or video-recordings-of a woman at work are rated differently when one of the scenes is attributed to a mother. In particular, those women identified as mothers are rated as less competent workers, with all other aspects being equal. The same bias has been found in Correll's studies against pregnant women compared with non-pregnant women.

            As a means of explanation, Correll writes that "women are often categorized either as 'housewives,' who are seen as warm, but not competent, or 'career women' who are viewed as competent, but not warm." As such, motherhood becomes a sort of indicator for the "housewife" stereotype, and observers are even inclined to be offended when a mother steps out of that role. Correll continues, "if [women] are viewed as more similar to the housewife stereotype, evaluators will view them as likeable, but not capable at work. If, however, they are viewed as more similar to the career women stereotype, they will be viewed as competent, but not likeable."

            The legal profession, to make matters worse, is not without its own set of obstacles for women and mothers. According to a 2006 New York Times feature on women in elite law firms, many women in the profession have felt that the assumptions described by Correll have left them feeling "pushed out" of their offices upon deciding to start a family. Even when many women actively choose to trade firm life for home life, many others would prefer to strike more of a balance that they feel is unavailable to them.