Up till very recently, women had no place in the legal profession.
The Wikipedia biography of the first UK woman lawyer reads as follows:
“Helena Normanton was a lawyer who scored a remarkable number of firsts in her legal career. She began as a history lecturer and, while teaching, she gained a first-class degree from the University of London. She was called to the bar in 1922 and became the first woman in England to practise as a barrister.In the 1920s Normanton was also, having married, the first woman in Britain to hold a passport in her maiden name, and the first female counsel to lead in a case at the High Court.In 1925 she became the first woman to conduct a case in the United States, and in 1948 she was the first woman to lead the prosecution in a murder trial in an English court. The following year, Normanton became (with Rose Heilbron) one of the first two women appointed as King’s Counsel.”
It is rare to have such an impressive track record, and yet, the name of Helena Normanton is hardly ever heard – least of all in her own profession.
The suffragettes seem to have attracted more attention and were perhaps more successful in their cause – for within a few decades, the right of universal suffrage for women would become a reality.
However, the fate of women in the legal profession is still not a tale of triumph and success – even a century after Ms Normanton showed us the way .
Why is this so ?
The first obvious reason is that there has never been a concerted or organized movement to ease women into the austere legal world – renowned for its male chauvinism.
The women who did it make it – first as law graduates, then as barristers and eventually as judges, succeeded by dint of sheer hard work, unblinking faith in themselves and personal courage. They owed it to themselves to fulfil their own dreams – undoubtedly at a heavy personal cost.
And once they did make it, they were surely not welcome with open arms. On the contrary, they were seen as hindrances and slurs on tradition. For was it not a tradition to address one another as learned brothers and did not judges refer to their peers as brother judges ? All this would need to change to accommodate the new female entrants, who would be well advised to concentrate on their qualities as homemakers and domestic goddesses.
But let us not fool ourselves : men are not the only reason why women have not always succeeded in the legal profession. In a good many cases, women have themselves to blame. Does it not stand to reason that when you have tried so hard to gain acceptance in a man’s world, you start emulating his behaviour ? So, what better way to achieve this than to be even harder on young women lawyers, than men themselves would be ?
But young women are undeterred. They continue joining the ranks in great numbers, heady with ambitions of success that may never happen.
In Mauritius, as recently as the 1980’s, women ranked as chattels and lunatics under an outdated civil code that went back to Napoleonic times. It is therefore a massive feat that today, merely one generation later, we have as many, if not more women than men joining the legal profession as barristers every year.
Although reliable statistics are not available, rough estimates would show that very few women survive in private practice. The system sucks them all in. Many join public service or take up employment, but few actually make a name for themselves as private practitioners.
Those women who have defied the odds and been able to remain in practice are scattered around and are not in any way able (or willing?) to join forces to make themselves heard.
So, in the absence of any rule book explaining the art of survival in the legal profession for women, let me bring my humble contribution and propose a few nuggets of wisdom to my learned sisters at the bar:
- You will be judged by how you look before what you have in your head;
- Nobody wants to know how smart you are – you are better off being invisible and getting the work done;
- When you assert yourself , you are a bully and unfeminine. When you play by the book, you are weak and insipid;
And … if you still wish to remain in business, turn to your sisters, instead of trying to become like your brothers !
