Standing on the shoulders of giants
I am reading a thought-provoking book called Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez and its dedication reads: “To the women who persist…”. In light of Sunday’s International Women’s Day, I have been giving some thought to this notion of persistence and how important it is in forging a career in the law.
One thing I have been thinking about recently is that how, in our still pretty male dominated profession, you don’t get the opportunity to see diversity in women, because there are such small numbers of women at most meetings, hearings and events. When we as female lawyers go about our daily lives, we don’t have strength in numbers. That is why International Women’s Day is so important. It allows us to look round and see people who look like us, those who don’t look like us and to celebrate the diversity we can find within our own sex. International Women’s Day really is a day of celebration. It is a celebration of how far we have come. And we have come this far because of persistence.
Krista Lee who is a newly appointed QC from Keating Chambers posted this on LinkedIn this week:
“Last year wasn't the first time I'd applied for silk. The first time, I wasn't even selected for interview This felt like a huge blow; especially as I couldn't bring myself to tell people about it. It felt like I'd been presumptuous even to apply. So it was an effort to show up for the 2019 selection.”
Of the people that applied for QC status last year, only 20% of applicants were women. To put that more starkly: last year only 52 women had the conviction to put themselves forward for silk, compared with 206 men.
Krista went on to say “We should learn from our male colleagues. Rejection isn't personal. It's just a minor set-back. Success is mostly about showing up. ALL of us have to keep showing up.”
Krista’s message is key. It is often said that women don’t apply unless they meet 100% of the criteria, whereas men apply if they meet 60% of the criteria. In Invisible Women Perez describes how Google reacted when they noticed that women weren’t nominating themselves for promotion at the same rate as men. They tried to address the issue by running workshops to encourage women to nominate themselves but, as Perez wryly points out, “recent research has emerged showing that while women tend to assess their intelligence accurately, men of average intelligence think they are more intelligent than two-thirds of people”. She wondered whether it wasn’t that women’s rates of putting themselves forward were too low, but that perhaps it was because men’s were too high….
How opportunities are framed can also impact whether women put themselves forward for selection, simply avoiding gender-nuanced language (words such as aggressive/competitive which are linked with male traits) and replacing them with words like enthusiasm and innovation in one study increased the number of female applicants from 5% to 40%.
So on International Women’s Day this is a call to everyone to consider putting themselves and other women forward for opportunities and promotion.
It was Newton who said “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” We all benefit from standing on the shoulders of those who came before us. I know I have personally benefited from those who have gone before me. Let’s look to be the shoulders upon which the next generation can stand by pushing ourselves and pulling others up that ladder.
Happy International Women’s Day.
