Maybe Male Attorneys Should Stop Telling Female Attorneys What To Wear

Yeah, that's pretty insulting.

Oh, to be a woman in the legal (or any) profession! The sexism is just never-ending, and you can’t tell just where the next hit will come from!

For example, you could be sitting down to attend the Vermont Bar Association Trial Academy when — bam! — sexism hits you right across the face.

That’s what happened to Ashley Hill, who works as a Deputy State’s Attorney in Washington County, Vermont. In a Facebook post that’s now gone viral, she details what presenters — who were male, natch — had to say about courtroom attire:

Women were admonished several times not to wear bright colors and not to wear heels that are too high, while another male presenter discussed how to select the proper courtroom tie and how important it can be to ask one’s wife for input about court attire.

What in the actual hell? Yeah, that’s pretty insulting, and Hill’s letter makes that pretty damn clear:

Older male presenters at the event felt empowered and emboldened to admonish women for literally wearing clothing and shoes. Last Friday, the VBA broadcast to a large audience that women are only as important as their subdued attire, appropriate heel height (whatever arbitrary height that may be, seemingly subject to the man observing said heels), and their ability to advise their husbands on the appropriate courtroom attire.

And, infuriatingly, Hill notes that the majority of speakers at the event were white men — because, of course they were:

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The lack of diversity of the presenters troubles me equally as much as the misogyny we witnessed. Perpetuating white male dominance in a field that is no longer white male dominated demonstrates organizational staleness and a keen lack of awareness of the ever-changing world we are practicing law in here in Vermont.

Hill proposes three actions by the bar association in response to this issue: 1) issue “a formal and meaningful apology” which, frankly seems like the bare minimum they can do; 2) have formal policies in place to ensure diversity in panel discussion, which, again, is a no-brainer; and 3) require CLEs that address implicit and explicit bias. This last one is a fantastic idea, and New York has recently expanded its ethics requirement to include something similar (though, we’ll note according to some rumbling that Above the Law has heard, not all of the diversity CLEs actually address diversity issues in a meaningful way).

And for all the women who deal with this or similar sexism in your career, you aren’t alone — we see it too. Maybe if we keep on reminding ourselves of that it’ll get easier to deal with.

Vermont prosecutor incensed by women’s ‘court attire’ discussion [Vermont Free Press]


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headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).