Why I Dislike Ann Althouse .

From yesterday's blog:

Ann Althouse said...
I worked in a big law firm for 2 years. The first year I was pregnant and took a 3-month maternity leave. Paid! The second year I searched for a lawprof job, traveled to interviews, and accepted an offer, then continued to work until my new job started.

It was very rewarding.

Remember, she majored in Art at Michigan in the 70s, and popped into the corporate workplace during the women's lib heydays, right when the big push was on to add some female names to the roster, to "equalize" things out...

But it's not her own personal choices I'm criticizing. It's the "me, me, me" celebrating -- boy, I got it good, didn't I? Suck-ahs!

It's what she does with those poorly practiced logic skills, the conclusion her story tells us:

Does that make you think it's harder or easier to make partner if you enter a big law firm and you are female?

Most people who end up in Biglaw have no desire to make partner. They want to do it for a few years, pay off their debts, and build up some credentials so they can do what they really want to do. But some people show up at the firm so hungry for the brass ring that they can taste it. You know what they say: “Making partner is like winning a pie-eating contest where the prize is more pie.” Yet there isn’t a lot of analysis and study about what one actually has to do to win this career race.

See the point of my question?

Here's what she was fishing for as an answer:

" A smart, talented female attorney who is prepared to bust her *ss and jump through the same hoops as the men has a significantly better chance of making partner than a male of equal caliber..."

That was my guess (and the reason I asked the question I did in the post).

Soooo... because she worked 3/4 of the time that first year, drawing full salary, and used her second working year to interview for a softer on-campus job, taking time off -- presumably with pay -- to interview elsewhere, thus: women who make partner today have it easier than equally qualified, similarly situated men.

Makes your head spin!

First, I have a sister, who works as an engineer at GE. Wash U education, worked 100% since graduating and has earned her way up. I can tell you: women work hard today to get what they've earned. They're not coddled or treated different in job expectations anymore. It's not the early 80s, women-unique-to-the-workplace situation now. Women compete, hard, and most can't afford to play the "me mommy: mercy?" special cards, if they want to succeed.

What Althouse is doing here, is casting doubt on the worth of all career women -- in law, doctors, engineers and other fields. Suggesting they got "helped up" because way back when, for two years in the late 70s/early 80s, she took full advantage of her special woman status.

Times have changed. With more and more women honestly competing, I believe her actions way back when would not be so tolerated now: flaunting her lack of committment to work, to advance ... herself.

Which, again, is wonderful. Sounds like she ended up with no law career (choosing to go the "safer" on-a-liberal-campus-in-Madison route, and the family failed too -- her two boys were raised with no father in the home, if I've got the longstory accurate.) But if she is happy for those early "choices", bully for her.

I dislike her for turning around now and casting doubt on the qualifications of all those women who indeed do take the work seriously, and commit to the job.

Sure, some today are still built like that -- "What can you the employer do for ME -- the career lady with young children at home who wants to have it all?" But less and less and less....

Reminds me of Justice Clarence Thomas, who learned because of affirmative action, his degree was worth much less than equally qualified white men, because it was assumed he took advantage and was "helped". No wonder he wants to do away with it, and let black men and women, and other "minorities" today compete equally and prove themselves equal in the workplace.

I often wonder where Althouse would be today in so many of her viewpoints, if she'd gone on to have a daughter instead of two (half) Jewish boys. Or even a surviving niece. Would she still be an "alpha female", taking for herself and her boys, without playing fair?

Or would she be more a team player, with a long game, understanding you don't screw the pooch and then complain how nobody's taking career women seriously, because they just up and make their babies then want you to pay them whilst they travel about, "exploring their options", and seeking accommodations for their children, who surely need their time with mama at home.

Again, that's fine for you (though notedly your career with the firm* and family might be pulled apart and you end up with neither.) But let's not pretend the reaason Johnny can't make partner today is because a lesser-qualified Jane had some leg up the career ladder on him, because she was a woman "competing" instead of a hard-working committed male.


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* Interestingly enough, while she worked at Sullivan et al. law firm, she induced her boy John .... on St. Patrick's Day. Ah. I bet the paternalistic fellas at the firm during that time LOVED to have a "redheaded" little lady on staff -- even a short timer -- who was fertily bearing babies on St. Paddy's Day, and naming em "John" to boot. "Can't we give that girl a little gift, she's such a friendly one there! Everyone in the office likes having her around, afterall. That Jewish fella staying home, raising the babies while he writes ... I don't think she gets much support there. Wonder if that combo will work out myself. Let's be especially good to the girl, eh? Like a going-away bonus maybe even..."
It was very rewarding. (Except, the rewards were perhaps unearned. It happens when you tilt the board, preferencing this "group" over that. Later perhaps, those favored feel guilty for advancing, specially, at the expense of others. Guilt gets to em, and then they end up backing "special" programs: affirmative action for men, to equalize out the extra help the women go. Special programs for minorities, since they were cheated when some grabbed all, unearned and unequally, and put them at a systemic disadvantage....)

Wouldn't it all be easier if we truly stopped discriminating, and played fairly. The winners* win, with no extra special rewards. (why she's a fine-looking one, that lassie!) Unless, of course, you think the men at her firm at the pre-FMLA time were rewarded equally for their special procreation skills...)

*Those willing to take the job seriously, who honestly put in the time and committment within the team where their work is valued more than their social grouping, or superficial characteristics.