My Take in Brief: I loved it, but you should click to one of the other reviews listed below for a more traditional review. In this post, I mainly explore feminist themes in the book.
Hero and Heroine: Both workaholic, intelligent, great looking, successful junior litigators at a large Chicago law firm, both hoping to make partner any day. J.D.’s the wealthy, conservative, golf enthusiast son of an admired judge. Payton’s the vegetarian feminist daughter of a single mom communist PETA loving hippie (and yes, I thought this an oddly WASPish name choice for this character, too). Thanks to their differences in worldview and the competitive environment of the firm, they’ve been antagonists trying comically to one up each other for 8 years.
Plot: The book is pretty light on plot, but as the novel opens, Payton and J.D. are in the final stretch of their 8 years bids to becomes partner. Long time rivals and antagonists, their boss asks them to team up to court an important client. Sparks fly as the two ditch their prejudices and get to know each other as human beings, not just walking political slogans.
Excerpt here.
Word on the Web:
Babbling About Books, Katiebabs, A
Book Smuggler, Ana, 8
Book Binge, Rowena, 4.5 out of 5
Thrifty Reader, Ames, A
Romance Novel TV, Buffie, 4.5
All About romance, Ellen, B
Amazon.com, 4.5 stars after 6 reviews
Fun Factoid: This book feels a lot like a farcical romantic comedy — kind of like the one with George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones, or the one with Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor. It turns out the author is a former screenwriter, and herself viewed PMP in these terms.
Sad factoid: James’ next book has a suspense subplot. Sigh.
Racy Romance Review:
I had just finished Ms. James’ terrific debut novel, Just the Sexiest Man Alive, when I immediately downloaded this one (thanks Kindle!). I loved both books, but I wanted to write about this one, in particular, because PMP deals with workplace discrimination, class, and gender, all topics that interest me.
In both novels, the heroine is a litigator who defends corporations from sexual harassment lawsuits. This is the author’s own professional background, and it shows. Little details about court proceedings, like where the heroine stands in the courtroom to direct the attention of jurors, and about the big law firm environment, like the importance of not just of face time and billable hours, but less tangible things, like laughing at a senior partner’s jokes, helped to create a very authentic setting.
In James’ first book (which is unrelated to this one except thematically), the heroine is asked point blank by the hero how a woman could do this line of work. Her answer, reasonably, is that it’s in the interest of women to defend innocent clients against nonmeritorious lawsuits to keep the focus on the real culprits. I imagine Payton’s view is the same. Of course, law firms don’t really care whether their clients are innocent, so I was left wondering what Payton would have done had she been asked to defend a guilty party. There’s always the argument that criminal defense lawyers urge: even if the defendant is guilty, justice requires that he get a fair trial. But I think there’s something a bit different about an avowed feminist defending guilty corporations in sexual harassment cases. Kind of like an avowed pacifist working for a weapons manufacturer. I’m not ready to say it can’t be done, but I wondered if Payton felt the tension.
Payton is described as a “liberal feminist” which I found very intriguing. Back in the day, we used to teach feminist theory in terms of political orientations (liberal, Marxist, socialist, radical), with liberal feminism referring to the strain of feminism best known in the US, beginning with the movement for women’s suffrage and growing into what’s now referred to as “second wave feminism”. The controlling idea of liberal feminism was that liberal democracy and capitalism are good, but women should be granted the same rights and privileges under this system as men. It short form, it’s known as the “me, too” feminism. From a more radical, critical point of view, liberal feminism is associated with the white middle class heterosexual able bodied women who have it pretty good, but decry the “glass ceiling” at work and the “second shift” at home, which puts them at a disadvantage relative to their more privileged male partners. In practice, if not in theory, liberal feminists tend to focus on gender, working in attention to other overlapping forms of oppression when possible, and in this book peopled with all white, hetero, privileged characters, this viewpoint prevails. There’s a lot to be said in defense of liberal feminism from these charges, but it’s not necessary to do so in this review because this is the view of LF we get in the book.
I really liked Payton. She is strong, smart, funny, and — like J.D. — incredibly anxious over the partner thing. She’s prone at times to negative emotions, like jealousy, envy, schadenfreude, spite. She’s very, very human. Payton’s “feminism” is signaled by her support of preferential promotion, a strong desire to be successful in her job, and her decision not to toss her career out like so much bath water after a lovely weekend with the hero. I’ll explain the scare quotes below.
For his part, J.D. is the rich boy, Ivy League, etc., etc., the guy with every advantage in life known to humankind, who yet feels oppressed by gender politics (he accuses Payton of having “the entire firm wrapped around one of her little liberal fingers”). I have met many of these young men in my life, and I would not normally say I am filled with sympathy for them, but Ms. James blinded me with her writing and made me love J.D. (I call this the “SEP effect”). He’s a bit of a dandy, takes himself too seriously, is terrified he won’t make partner — he’s motivated by the desire to prove himself to his titan of a disapproving father, whose nepotism he rejected early in his career — and he’s ripe for a comeuppance by the heroine. James and Payton have a lot of fun with him.
Interestingly, J.D. seems more interested in gender discrimination than Payton, despite the fact that it is Payton herself who faces overt and covert gender based discrimination. This is because a memo goes out saying that the firm hopes to increase the number of female partners by 10% in the next year, making J.D. feel sure he will lose out based on gender. J.D. is furious despite the fact that this policy will only bring the percentage to 28%, arguing “There is no glass ceiling anymore — these women whose to leave the workforce of their own volition … it’s reverse discrimination.”
J.D. uses the rhetoric of choice to defend the lack of representation of women in the upper echelons of his firm. This is a common strategy. Why do more women than men “choose” to get on the mommy track? Gee, I guess they just want to. And why don’t more men do it? Gee, I guess they just happen NOT to want to. The way choices are structured by gender, race, class, social and work environments, wage scales, discrimination, health policy, daycare, tradition, etc,. etc, etc. all fades away. J.D. is a very real character with very typical views.
I really appreciated the fact that James was willing to raise these issues in a romance novel. If Payton gets the partnership, J.D. will blame her gender (affirmative action policies), and if J.D. gets it, Payton will blame his gender (and class: he’s part of the old boy network). I know that romances do deal with many important issues other than romantic love, and I blogged about this over at Dear Author a few months ago. But in my (admittedly limited) experience, facing gender inequality directly is not common in contemporaries, I would guess because dealing with those issues is in tension with making the antagonists love each other.
But look how James does it. In this scene, the two are arguing in the stacks of the firm’s library, after just discovering the odds of both of them making partner are vanishingly small:
J.D. followed after her. “Are you saying I don’t deserve this?” he demanded. “I’ve billed over twenty-nine hundred hours for the past eight years!”
Payton whipped around, “So have I! And the only difference between you and me is that statistics say you’re more likely to keep it up. The firm doesn’t worry that one day you’ll decide you want to leave at five to kiss your kids goodnight.”
J.D. stepped closer to her. Then closer again, literally trapping her against the bookshelves.
“Spare me the feminist rant, Payton. It’s getting a little tired. I’ve had to work my ass off to get where I am, while you had your ticket written from the minute you stepped into this firm.”
Payton felt her face flush with anger. “Really? Well, you know what I think, J.D.? She jabbed his chest with one of her fingers. “I think that you are an uptight, pony-owning, trickle-down-economics-loving, Scotch-on-the-rocks-drinking, my-wife-better-take-my-last-name sexist jerk!”
J.D. grabbed her hand and pulled it away. “Well, at least I’m not a stubborn, button-pushing, Prius-driving, chip-on-your-shoulder-holding, ‘stay-at-home-mom’ is the eighth-dirty-word-thinking feminist!”
He had her pressed against the bookshelves, his body against hers, her hand pinned to her side as he glared down at her. She glared up at him right back.
He was furious. So was she.
Neither of them moved. And in that moment, the strangest thought popped into Payton’s head.
She had the feeling that J.D. was going to kiss her.
And–even stranger — she had a feeling that she just might let him.
I am not going to get into the pros and cons of preferential hiring and promotion in this post, except to say that I thank God Ms. James got it right by portraying the kinds of policies that actually exist — the ones where gender and race can serve as a “plus factor” in deciding between two equally qualified candidates. Too many people think affirmative action means hiring unqualified candidates. There are lots of good arguments for “plus factor” policies, including the value of diversity (“diversity” itself can mean lots of different things, but to give one example, Payton herself acknowledges that a female attorney on the team is crucial for defending law firms against sexual harassment), reparations for past discrimination (this is especially strong for race based preferential hiring), and, my favored argument, combating continued and ongoing harmful workplace discrimination.
As I mentioned above, Payton faces gender based discrimination (or at least what we call “secondary sexism”, the effect of a sexist environment that puts her at a disadvantage) throughout the book. She notices the unfair advantages that rich white men like J.D. receive (he may have better credentials — like the Ivy League degrees– but it is likely that he faced fewer obstacles in getting them, an argument for not evaluating candidates by credentials alone), and is especially attuned to class advantages, but I did wish she took the sexism she faced more to heart.
While Payton strongly rejects J.D.’s arguments against preferential promotion (“Why don’t you look around this firm sometime — everyone here is just like you, J.D. White with a penis.”), she is curiously lacking in energetic responses to the ways sexism hurts her personally. For example, early on, she mentions that she feels less comfortable with the senior male partners than J.D. As a woman, she just doesn’t have the easy rapport with them that J.D. enjoys. This is a gender thing, but Payton refers to it as the firm being “old-fashioned” and resolves to be friendlier. I realize there’s not really a better strategy until she makes partner, but if she’s a “feminist”, I think her perception of the awkward interactions with Ben would have been more overtly gendered. When J.D. plans a golf outing at a course that does not allow women, thus excluding Payton from several hours of interaction with important potential clients, he is clearly using gender, and class as well (golf lessons were not on her mother’s hippie agenda), as a way to one up her in the race to partner. But again, she shrugs it off.
MILD SPOILER ALERT
Later in the book, when we discover something truly reprehensible that J.D. has done, something that has likely made Payton’s career and reputation suffer for the duration of her tenure at the law firm, she doesn’t fight back, personally or professionally (my one disappointment with the book). In my view, what it means to me to be a feminist is recognizing that when these things happen, it’s not just one individual (J.D.) doing it: it’s a part of a system (yes, the patriarchy) that needs to be understood and combated. For an avowedly political person, it was curious to me that Payton did not easily or fully politicize sexism when it was directed at her. Would doing so have made her seem strident to readers? Maybe.
END SPOILER
I’ve focused on gender, but the class issues are very interesting as well. The conflict in Payton’s relationship with her mother is the amount of money she earns, and it’s a bit troubling for Payton herself. It’s curious that someone with her upbringing would have chosen the type of law she did, and the work environment she did, and I would have liked more backstory on her character — why did she take that path?
Ms. James knows class differences, and she nails J.D., who is really a snob. At one point he ponders that his clients “did not pay to have their uber-important opposition to class certificaton motions argued by some jackass who looked like he’d spilled his Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee Coollatta all over himself while driving in from the suburbs in his Ford Taurus”. I found myself wondering if middle class romance readers would feel insulted by that line (as an academic, I’m classless. 
).
Most of these issues do not get resolved by the end of the book — J.D. does not, for example, sell his Bentley to pay for the construction of hospitals in Rwanda — but, Pride and Prejudice style, falling in love with each other helps Payton and J.D. gain more empathy for “the other side”, and, in a very satisfying ending, they do succeed in establishing a new lifestyle without compromising their own values.
I’m sorry to have gone on so long about the book’s politics, because this is really a pretty light, fun, and funny book. In fact, the revelations about J.D. that come late in the book sucker-punched me precisely because I had been coasting along enjoying their banter and sexual tension so much. I can say that one of the above revelations gave me the kind of heartbreak, and the other the kind of joy, that I only feel when I am totally invested in a book and its characters.
I complained above that Ms. James apparently has decided to turn against the very reader who has written what is likely to be the longest review in the blogphere of her book by venturing into said reviewer’s least favorite subgenre, the dreaded rom suspense. Practice Makes Perfect was so much fun and so enjoyable, however, that I am willing to read whatever the heck she decides to write, and cannot wait to do so.
I liked your review of the book although I won’t try to agree or disagree with you on any feminism or discrimination involved in it. I do have a question for you though… Why is Payton a very WASP name? That comment struck me as odd and stayed with me through the review, so I just had to ask.
*I saw your post on DA a while ago and I’ve been randomly checking out your site since*
@ Catherine:Thank you for visiting. You’re right. I just checked it out, and it’s an Irish name. Naming girls with unisex surnames was a very WASPish thing to do when I was growing up (Tripler, Talbott, Taylor, etc.). My bad!
Ahhh thank you for explaining it. I guess it must be a case of different generations as I was very unfamiliar with that practice.
I recently read your review of To Have and To Hold and your relating posts on rape. I found your views very interesting. I think I’ll stick around and visit more often.
I am taking a class right now about the psychology of the work environment. Of course we talked about diversity. There were two really interesting issues for me. I’m sorry that this is so long.
Being of a younger generation (and probably pretty naïve), I kind of always had the impression that programs like affirmative action shouldn’t be necessary. Wouldn’t it be in the best interest of the companies to just hire the most qualified participants? In other words, shouldn’t they be race/economy/gender blind? As it turns out, even when you take out the racism and sexism, organizations naturally tend towards homogeny (think sororities). So, if companies want diversity, and other studies have shown that diversity is good, they have to develop strategies that actively seek out and maintain diverse employees.
The second issue we addressed was what constitutes real diversity. The advantage of diversity for companies is that it allows them to adapt to changes in the business environment, especially during times of crisis. But a major question now is whether race, gender, ethnicity, or other surface differences are really indicators of deep diversity. If they are not, then the question becomes how can a company selection process measure differences such as values, methodologies, ways of thinking, ways of living, world views.
I’m not sure how I feel about arguing for more diversity in the workplace because it is better business. There is a large part of me that thinks it is cynical and misses the larger social justice issue that people should be judged fairly based on merit. But then again, almost no one is ever judged only on quantitative, completely objective standards. So, I guess it’s more that I don’t think there should be systematic biases that hurt women and minorities.
Oh, and I just wanted to add this, lest someone think that my comment above means businesses have accepted the value of diversity. Everyone knows about the wage gap (women are paid .70-.80 cents to the dollar that men in the same positions are paid). However, a recent study showed that regardless of a manager’s gender, manager’s who supervise more women (and minorities) are paid less than those who supervise men. Companies are devaluing the work of women AND giving managers incentives not to hire women or minorities. So while many companies say they want diversity, there are obviously still a lot of attitude adjustment that has to occur before diversity is actually valued.
Margie, I guess I’d guess I’m of a like age with you. I’ve never been a big fan of hiring policies that urge the companies to have x amount of x race or x amount of x sex. I don’t want to be hired over my male competition just because I’m a girl. I want to be hired because I’m good.
I can’t help but feel bad for men in the workplace a lot of the time. In the fields I have been in (that are extremely male dominant) I have seen a lot of self imposed restriction from the females. They want to flirt and get help with their work but they don’t want anyone to not want to work with them because of it.
I can’t help but feel embarrassed and angry when I see this happen. Those type of female employees are the reason that every male shop I’ve worked with has been weird with me when I was hired. They’re so afraid that I’ll be offended by anything or that I’ll try to get out of what I was hired for. I don’t blame them… I’ve seen that type of behavior plenty of times. So many times I see girls cry at work because the boss criticized them. So unprofessional. You do not cry at work. It makes me feel sorrier for guys than I do for most girls.
My friend says she wants me to turn in my ovaries because that’s not a girl stance to take!
I really appreciated your bringing our the “plus factor” dimension of hiring, and using diversity and gender as one of many plus factors. It’s so easy, thanks to the media, to fall into the whole “quota” thinking and the false idea that ‘unqualified but the right race/gender’ vs qualified is what’s going on.
So funny, this long review. I haven’t yet read this (thanks for the spoiler alert) but knowing her first book, I’m sure it wasn’t a big part of the story. Oddly, this review makes me look all the more forward to reading this book. I remembered that reply about why a woman would be a sexual harrassment lawyer from JTSMA, and I really appreciated it.
I loved your point about payton not seeing the sexism she faces. I know that’s something I totally do. You have added a whole nother dimension now to my upcoming reading experience.
I have to agree with you that romantic suspense leaves me cold. And now I’m wibbling because you talk about the sucker-punch of the revelation about J.D. — these things hit me hard when I’m reading and sometimes I’ve been known to throw a book across the room in disgust if one of the leads really disappoints me. Good thing I don’t have a Kindle, eh?
Wow. I need to start first by saying, honestly, how honored I am that you took the time to do such a detailed review of PMP, discussing subjects that are very important to me. I LOVE that the book spurred such an in-depth analysis. Thank you, thank you for this!!
Okay, so where to start… I’m going to be careful not to give away any spoilers, so that will curtail some of my discussion… I guess let me start by reiterating, as you pointed out, that for several years I practiced law at a large firm and specialized in the field of employment discrimination defense. (Just like Payton and Taylor in JTSMA). That question you quoted from JTSMA, about why Taylor practiced in that field, was one I was asked point-blank by a summer associate at a firm luncheon. The answer I gave was the same as Taylor’s. My experience, therefore, obviously influenced the way I viewed Payton’s position at her firm and the obstacles she faced. That being said, when writing the book, I wanted to be careful to present a balanced point of view. Yes, there were literary reasons for this (J.D. is the hero, and therefore his POV should be presented as well), but more importantly, I know that J.D.’s perspective is a very realistic one amongst men in the legal profession (and others, I’m sure). I have many good friends, men, who are attorneys are large law firms (not to mention my husband), and they worry about the very things J.D. does. I think the bottom line I wanted to portray is that the path to making partner isn’t easy for anyone. (Particularly in these times–yikes.)
A couple of things that influenced me when writing the book: it is very, very loosely based on my own experience. In my group, there was a male associate who was in the same class as me and we were both well-respected and “on the right track.” However, my group had never before made two people partner in one year, and I often wondered what would happen when our class finally came up. He was from an ivy-league school (I went to a state school for the in-state tuition, like Payton) and he golfed and bowled and got along very well, on a personal level, with the head of our group–an “in” I didn’t have. From there, my VERY over-active imagination came up with a story about two associates fighting it out for partner who fall in love along the way.
Another thing that influenced me: back when I was still practicing law, several firms publicly adopted policies like the one I included in PMP: a “pledge” to increase the number of female partners by a certain percentage within a certain time frame. That spurred plenty o’ discussion amongst both the male and female attorneys at these firms, I can tell you. : ) Again, that became an element I included in the book.
Another interesting point that you raised: the idea of what Payton would have done had she been forced to defend a guilty client. I can say this: in my practice, I was lucky never to have had to face that issue. This is not to say discrimination doesn’t exist– of course it absolutely does– but my clients, fortunately, were large corporations who had effective polices in place to both curtail and respond to inappropriate workplace actions. Also, one thing to keep in mind is that employment lawyers do a lot of preventative client counseling to make sure lawsuits don’t occur (harassment training and advising clients how to handle situations as they happen, e.g. when Payton tells her client to “fire the guy” (the manager who harassed another employee)).
Whew. That is a lot of rambling… See what happens when a lawyer gets going?
Oh– one other thing I have to say… so about this bias you have against romantic suspense… Okay, so I love romantic suspense. Three of the five screenplays I’ve written are thrillers. That being said, my up-coming book is still a romantic comedy, there’s just this suspense subplot that forces the hero and heroine to work have to work together. Think kind of like JTSMA, where Taylor has to work with Jason to coach him for his film– only in this case, the heroine (an Assistant U.S. Attorney) and hero (an FBI agent) have to work together in a criminal investigation. It’s still lighter and funny. Er… at least I hope it is.
Okay, let me stop for now and post this and go back and see if there’s anything else I want to add. (pause for screams from everyone who thinks I’ve already said WAY to much.) And again, thank you so much for the thoughtful review– I’m so glad I had a chance to discuss some of these issues!
How absolutely fascinating–and timely. Thank you, Jessica for this review and thank you Julie for your response. I found this book at my library yesterday and brought it home. I think I’ll move it to the top of my TBR pile.
I work for a law school (but am not myself a lawyer). I love to read anything that involves lawyers.
I feel like I concentrated so much on the lighter aspects of the novel and left out the more deeper aspects out in my review. Thank God for you, Jessica. We need balance in the reviewing world. : D
Amazing review and thoughts and I loved Julie’s reply.
This post made me think of this post at Feministe.
Catherine wrote:
I hope you do!
Margie wrote:
There is still a big problem as you so helpfully point out. the question is what the best remedy is. One problem with AA, however you justify it, is that it cuts very broad swathes and may not help the people who deserve it, while helping those who do not.
carolyn jean wrote:
It wasn’t a big part of JTSMA at all. PMP is very different in that sense. While I don’t think you have to focus quite so much on these issues as I did, I do really appreciate the fact that you cannot really understand these characters at all unless you understand their politics and their political milieu.
Janice wrote:
No, it’s not that bad, really. They sound heavier notes than the rest fo the book, but we are no where near Laura Kinsale territory or anything.
Julie James wrote:
I think you succeeded really well there. I actually worked as a legal assistant in a large big city corporate law firm (where I earned more $$ than I later did as a junior tenure track faculty member) prior to entering grad school. I decided not to go to law school the day I walked into the bathroom and found my female, totally tough, take no prisoners unstoppable force of a boss clinging to the sink, crying into the mirror, saying “Jeff Partridge (a founding partner) just screamed at me and I swear he induced my period.”
Julie James wrote:
Whew. But maybe I just need to read more Rom Suspense. After all, if someone had told me two years ago I would be reading romance and blogging about it I would never have believed it.
Thank you very much for sharing the experiences that shaped your perspectives and your writing!
Ana wrote:
It’s confirmed, then. I am the darkness and you are the light. Don’t ever invite me to one of your parties.
Jessica,
I have never read Julie James but your reviews make me want to. Which of the two you read did you like best? This one or Just the Sexiest Man Alive?
Also, are you looking for romantic suspense recommendations? I am very picky where this subgenre is concerned but I’d be happy to recommend a few of the ones I like.
Janine wrote:
I preferred PMP, for a few reasons, which I shall now set out in my typical longwinded fashion:
1. I enjoyed the fact that gender and class were not just window dressing to create conflict but were really dealt with (although not as thoroughly and directly as they might have been). These are things I work on and provided an extra level of interest and enjoyment for this reader.
2. There were two subplots in JTSMA, the legal case the heroine was working on, and a second actor courting the heroine’s affection, that did not work super well for me. PMP basically had no subplots, and the intense focus on the h/h and the partnership battle was something I enjoyed.
3. In JTSMA, the heroine suffers from my least favorite romance malady, the fear that the past will repeat itself (although at least it was RECENT past) with the new man, and
4. In JTSMA, the hero, while adorable, was a Brad Pitt level movie star, and an insatiable ladies’ man, and I was left wondering just a smidgen if his transformation into a one woman man was genuine, and how on earth this ordinary woman was going to cope with her new life in the bubble.
I hasten to add that I really enjoyed both of these books. They are lots of fun, witty, and comic, almost farcical at times. They reminded me a little of “Bet Me”, which for me is pretty much my gold standard for contemps. Despite my focus on the politics in this “review”, these books are NOT — by the author’s intention of course — Kinsales or Gaffneys!
And yes, send those rom suspense recs my way, although email would probably be better than diverting this thread entirely, if you don’t mind. FYI, I’ve read Krentz, Howard, Brockmann, Burton, Clare, and a few others.
Thanks Jessica. I enjoyed “Bet Me” a lot, though not quite as much as “Welcome to Temptation.” And from your reviews and excerpts, I wasn’t expecting anything in the vein of Kinsale or Gaffney. I will see if I can get my hands on a copy of PMP.
ETA: Check your email for romantic suspense recs…
Wow – fascinating review and fascinating discussions. this book isn’t on the shelves here but I had already made up my mind (after reading JTSMA) that I was going to read this one too.
Well, isn’t this great! You really get it going!!
KristieJ wrote:
Well, I don’t have the power of The Kristie (a la Broken Wing) but I’m happy to do my part to share my enjoyment of this book! You will really like it, esp if you enjoyed her first.
@ carolyn jean:
Well goodness! This review just speaks to me about so many things! Naturally enough. I’m a lawyer myself who has abandoned any hope of partnership in the firm I work in so that I can be the kind of parent I want to be (whilst still working). I can relate to many of the scenes and issues that you mention in this review but I’ll restrict myself to a few comments.
1. I am a feminist but this is not an easy thing, this issue of equal treatment in the workplace. For me personally, the notion of the glass ceiling is overly simplistic. The day I became pregnant, my career ambitions began to wane. That happened to me. I am part of my own glass ceiling – and yes I recognise that part of that is gender conditioning and all that – but still. I’m incredibly invested in what I do, but I’m not prepared to work all the hours and I come in late in the morning after the school run and work 4 out of 5 days. Do I seriously expect the management of my firm to select for partnership someone who isn’t prepared to invest as much time and commitment in the role as another (male) person? No. (Incidentally, my husband also works 4 days out of 5 and so I have at least the comfort of equality at home!)
2. It’s interesting that you bring up the role of a female litigator in a gender driven case. I have experience of a case (a commercial case but it involved the sex industry) in which we thought long and hard about what gender and personality the advocate of the case should be. I think we called it wrong. Me – I don’t have any issue with any case I’m asked to present provided that it is within the legal and ethical boundaries of my profession. My job is to be my client’s agent and there is a mind-shift involved in taking on that role. Personal feelings have to be put aside and I’ve never found that difficult. That said, I’ve never been in a position of being asked to pursue or defend something I have a major issue with.
3. Yes, JD is very typical – by the sound of him – of so many men of the profession. But whereas (at least in my corner of the world) 20 years ago, men like that could almost expect to be made a partner, now a much smaller fraction of them will be. That sort of easy privilege has and is being chipped away at (though not really, in my view, because of women in the workplace – more because of commercial considerations and a massive increase in the numbers entering the profession). I know many male lawyers who feel embattled and I see that that’s hard for someone in that position (whilst giving no quarter about why it’s hard(er?) for me). In my position, a man may well feel like a failure. But I can treat myself as a success because I’ve exercised a choice not to reach for that.
I could write so much more but I’ll content myself with saying that you’ve probably persuaded me to pick up a book I normally would never read.
@ Tumperkin:
Thanks so much for the reply. It’s so interesting to hear what women in Payton’s situation have chosen. Two of my college roomies are lawyers. One has two children, one has no children. One is not a partner (although her husband is), and the other just sent me a photo George Stephanopolous (ABC News Washignton correspondent and former advisor to President Clinton) giving her a leadership award.
Guess which one is the mother?
When I was in grad school, I had three women faculty out of 25. All were married, non were mothers. The message was very clear: you are going to have to choose. Thankfully I didn’t, but the ranks of my female cohort who had to give up academia to be the kind of parents they wanted to be are very full.
You make a great point about the glass ceiling not being something simply externally imposed. And I would never say that someone’s desire to have children and mother in a way that she feels is appropriate is the result of evil patriarchal conditioning. I do lament the fact that anyone — women or men — have to make this choice, I lament the fact that working class and poor women often do not have the luxury of making it, and also that more men don’t make it, and also that the work of parenting itself is not valued in our culture the way, say, legal work is, such that when women like you make the choices you do, you are not made economically vulnerable.
Jessica – I agree with all that you say and yet – and yet when you say ‘I lament that anyone…has to make this choice’, I have to say that there is another side to that coin. Which is the opportunity of that choice. All in all, do I resent my situation? Do I feel I’ve had to make a choice I didn’t want? *Frowns* I don’t know that I do. I mean, part of this whole thing is this thing of Success and what we are all conditioned to think that is. Do I feel unfortunate and passed over? Well, at times at do. At others, I feel extraordinarily fortunate. I was able to take 9 months maternity leave for my first child and 11 months for my second child. Not all paid, but my job was waiting for me when I got back. And despite working in a difficult and notoriously inflexible profession, I have been able to negotiate some flexibility in my life. My male counterparts get one week’s paternity leave and I do not think they would so easily be granted any flexibility in their working (regardless of their legal rights).
I’m no apologist for The Way Things Are but equally, I think it’s important to be honest. I realise though that many women are very far from being as fortunate as me.
I bopped back in to reread this, having just finished the book. Your points are excellent; I was particularly struck by Payton’s lack of response to the no-women allowed golf club. In a way it seemed that the feminism she was portrayed as espousing only came out when responding to theoretical issues.
I was going to comment that I wondered about the future of a relationship between two such different people, but the more I thought about it, the less they really seemed different to me.
I did enjoy the book, and luckily for me, am quite fond of romantic suspense.
@ willaful:
I’m so glad you read it! I agree that they were much more similar than different — Payton’s mistrust of wealth and her mild critiques of the economy seemed more like hand waving to her mother’s ideology than her own true feelings.
Tumperkin wrote:
Amen to that.
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