Old Secretary: A Special Note to Women

At the very real risk of being totally un-PC, my experience has been that, unlike men, who exhibit a wide range of personalities/expectations/ attitudes, women bosses fall easily into two poetic “There was a little girl” categories: “When she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid.” One of the biggest disappointments for me has been that women have not made an appreciable difference in the practice of law. They have not brought a softer edge to law, but have instead often become horrible little men in their frantic efforts to scramble toward success. In many cases, the oppressed have become the oppressors and women who have “made it” certainly have not remembered those of us who chose the more traditional route. I sometimes wonder whether the whole feminist revolution was worth the struggle. My advice to women in power: Remember from whence you came and never forget those of us who fought to make the way for you.