Last week I didn’t have enough material for a R&T issue, but this week we almost have too much. There is plenty to talk about, so let’s dig in . . .

High-Earning Women Are Making Much Less than Their Male Counterparts

As explained in a Bloomberg Law article, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that the annual average weekly earnings of women were only 83.6% of those earned by men. While that’s the smallest differential on record, the data are not entirely encouraging. Importantly for women lawyers, the gap between men and women is much wider among college graduates with advanced degrees, or high earners. High-earning women only make 72.8% of what their male peers make. Bloomberg posits this may be because higher paying jobs require longer hours—hours that are difficult for women to accommodate without sufficient support at home.

Flexible Work is Key to Gender Equity

The Rutgers Center for Women in Business posted an article on LinkedIn summarizing a recent conference where presentations included topics like why flexible work arrangements are a necessary component of gender equity. According to presenters at the conference, 76% of employees would look elsewhere for employment if they lost flexible work options. Importantly, the presenters also found that flexible work arrangements promote gender equity in the workplace by allowing couples to balance the emotional work of parenting and other caregiving.

Yet Remote Workers Are Losing Out on Promotions

Despite the above wisdom, the Wall Street Journal [paywall] reports that remote workers are not getting promoted as much as people who work in the office. This is due in part to the fact that fully remote workers receive less mentorship. Nick Bloom of Stanford, who’s written extensively on this subject, attributes the lack of promotion and mentorship of remote workers to “proximity bias”—supervisors’ tendencies to favor those employees they see in the office. Indeed, nearly 90% of chief executives surveyed said that when it comes to favorable assignments, raises, or promotions, they are more likely to reward employees who come to the office. This is a hot topic in management circles: NPR did a good story on what remote employees are missing this week as well.

But Office Mandates Don’t Make Companies More Profitable

The Washington Post published an article discussing research conducted by the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh that showed, based on an analysis of 457 S&P 500 firms, that companies with return-to-office mandates did not have better stock prices than those who allowed employees to work remotely.

More commentary on “there are more female associates!”

I’ve seen the research I discussed two weeks ago about how there are now more female associates than male associates posted everywhere. I suppose we’re all trying to make ourselves feel better about the progression of gender equity in the law, even if that’s not what the study really shows at all. Law360’s [paywall] contribution is an article about what GCs think about women associates outnumbering men. Encouragingly, the GCs in the article got the real issue—that law firms still aren’t promoting and retaining women, which is what really matters. Time for these powerful women to insist that their outside counsel do better.

The backlash against DEI is bad business

Fast Company published a nice article by Mita Mallick (Reimagine Inclusion author) on why the backlash against DEI referenced in this week’s newsletter is bad for business. She concludes that inclusion is the most powerful retention tool we have. Mallick also just published an article in the Harvard Business Review about how to identify toxic workplaces before you decide to work there.

Diversifying the Appellate Bar

Even though I recently had the privilege of working with an outstanding and accomplished female appellate lawyer (here’s looking at you, Cathy Dorsey!), I don’t think anyone would deny that the appellate bar needs diversification. Enter Juvaria Khan, who started a nonprofit called the Appellate Project, which is working to diversify the appellate bar by offering resources such as a mentorship program, clerkship handbook, legal writing workshops, and networking opportunities. There’s an article about her nonprofit in Law360 [paywall] here. And here’s a link to her organization’s website. Bravo!

Claudia Goldin on Why Women Won

As I’ve discussed in prior issues, around the time she won the Nobel Prize in economics in October of last year, Claudia Goldin authored a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research entitled Why Women Won. I recently finally got around to reading that paper.

In Goldin’s view, the golden era of American women’s rights lasted from 1963 to 1973, where, as shown below, 45% of 155 important events in the women’s movement took place:

Among other highlights, that decade saw:

• The Equal Pay Act of 1963

• Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act

• The publication of The Feminine Mystique

• The formation of the National Organization for Women (NOW),

• The shift to coeducation among many of the Ivies and little Ivies

• The passage of the ERA in the House and Senate

• Title IX of the 1972 Education Act

• The spread of no-fault and unilateral divorce laws among the states

• The first edition of Ms. Magazine

• Roe v. Wade

However, the same decade also produced a powerful anti-women’s rights movement that still exists today. As Goldin puts it, “the successes of the women’s rights movement also produced [sic] changes that reduced its impact.”

Opposition to the women’s rights movement grew for several reasons. As the women’s rights movement experienced successes, many women returned to their normal lives and left the formal and informal networks that had formed to advance the movement in the first place. In plain language, Women got complacent.

Then an anti-women’s rights movement started to take shape. STOP ERA—spearheaded by Phyllis Schlafly and the Eagle Forum—successfully halted the ratification of the ERA in 35 states. Then, after Roe v. Wade was decided, anti-abortion groups joined the coalition. As the anti-women’s rights movement grew, the women’s right movement became viewed as more radical. The word “feminist” started taking on a negative connotation, leading more women to eschew the use of the term.

Anyone seeing echoes of this today? I recommend reading Goldin’s paper. It sheds some light on issues we still see today in the feminist movement.

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