Advice for the Lawlame: Why Are Lady Lawyers So Bitchy?

Before you call us sexist and let slip the dogs of war, please note that the question in the title of this post isn’t ours. Rather, it’s a question submitted to one of the NYLawyer.com advice columns, by a female attorney. Here’s the complete query:

I am a female associate, and I wonder if I’m alone in vastly preferring to work for male attorneys than female attorneys. It’s also easier to have male opposing counsel.

Many women I’ve worked for or had as opposing counsel have been humorless, driven, easily offended, easily threatened, and seemingly without the ability to relax and take it easy.

Men that I’ve worked for or had a matter with, by contrast, have been relaxed, not gotten upset about every little thing, have been unthreatened, and so forth. It’s just been a lot easier to get along with them.

I’d hate to think that women lawyers just aren’t very good at managing people or playing well with others, but that’s the experience I’ve had. What are your thoughts?

You can read career consultant Holly English’s response here. Or you can read our less earnest reaction, appears after the jump.

Dear Catfighter,

MEOW!!! Your message brims over with negative stereotypes about women. But we’re not too politically correct around here, so we’ll indulge you.

Have you ever stopped to think that perhaps the problem lies not with the female attorneys you’ve worked for, but with yourself? Reading between the lines of your message, we suspect that you’re a hottie — and that you know it.

If you want to improve relations with your female colelagues, you need to stop showing up to the office in cleavage-baring, diaphonous white blouses paired with shocking-pink micro-minis. We can understand why the women you work with feel “offended” and “threatened” when you show up in a skin-tight, leopard-print sheath dress on casual Friday.

The solution to your dilemma is simple: Frump it up! Get a “reverse makeover,” in which you trade your contacts for hideous glasses, gain fifteen pounds, and stop using make-up. We suspect that, after your transformation, your female colleagues will be much friendlier.

And what about male attorneys? Yeah, they probably won’t pay as much attention to you as they did before. After all, they’re men.

But that’s a problem for another day, and another column. You can’t please everyone all the time…

Sincerely,

Your Friends at Above the Law

Work/Life Wisdom [NYLawyer.com]

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