Judiciary, Law School Faculty, and Law Firms Are All Filled with Men?

Living as a Young Woman in South Korea (17) Society as seen from law school

By Dal

Published October. 31, 2016

Translated by Marilyn Hook

※ Editor’s note: To begin a new feminist discourse in 2016, Ilda is running a series on “Living as a Young Woman in South Korea.” The series receives support from the Korea Foundation for Women’s “Funding for Gender-Equal Society.”

I was smart

Because grades are a form of power and a reason for discrimination in our society, I’ve avoided mentioning them since I became an adult. But to tell the truth, I was a good student. I was a good student for as long as I can remember.

I had to put in effort to maintain my good grades, but it was on the level of maybe two intense bouts of studying per semester, for tests. And for that, I was the top student, and so far ahead of the runner-up that I could proudly trample on teachers’ half-concealed beliefs that a male student should be first. I showed my friends my practice tests and annotated textbooks as if they were public goods, and became class president with little trouble.

My high school report card. I think this was the last time that
working hard brought me fair results.

I went to a private girls’ high school that shared teachers and student rankings with its attached brother school. The teachers would scare us by saying, “Female students get high grades at first, but as the year goes on, boys’ grades shoot up because they’re good at science and math – you all will be defeated soon.” But a male student who could ‘squash me with his fearsome persistence’ never did materialize. In university, too, I enjoyed my classes and graduated with good grades.

I spent my student years, which have been most of my life, comfortably and happily. Because of these experiences, I became sure that if I chose a career which involved studying, I would be able to demonstrate my skill and would do well. My friends and teachers also supported this idea.

Law school preparation: men’s fantasies about having a grade-school teacher for a wife

A few years after graduating from university, I decided to go to law school. Because it’s easy to get lazy when you try to study alone, I joined an entrance-test study group that I found through an online forum for hopeful applicants. We met twice a week, at a university near my house, to solve and discuss practice test questions.

As the test date approached, our stress levels increased and people would sometimes talk about the happy futures that awaited them once they passed. Men would say that once they had become lawyers, they would be able to get blind dates with women with jobs like “teacher,” that they would earn the status to be introduced by marriage matchmaking companies to good women. 

They didn’t hesitate to say that kind of thing in front of me, a woman and would-be lawyer. They thought that women who are teachers or something similar are “pure,” and talked about them like they are trophies to be won. But the education students I’ve known are people who, like us, were at the top of their classes and had to pass a competitive entrance exam. And none of the women in our group talked about the “pure” men that they would get after they became successful.

The workbook that I memorized to get into law school ⓒ Dal

We took the first required test, the Legal Education Eligibility Test. Most of the members of my student group did not get high enough scores to enter law school. Inwardly, I thought that if they were genuinely smart people, they wouldn’t think of smart women like teachers as pure wives. I thought that people who believed stupid things like that weren’t really smart, and that the legal circles that I was about to enter would only contain logical, upstanding people.

Law school: ‘women, find a mate at school!’

I got the score I wanted on the Legal Education Eligibility Test, and entered the law school I wanted to study an area I was interested in. Now I was really in the midst of the very top masters of studying. I thought, “Okay, now I need to study every waking moment to cram all this information into my head.” Full of this determination, I got the following affectionate advice about student life from a professor: 

“It’s different for men, but women who become lawyers are less valuable on the marriage market. Men don’t like women who are too smart. If you want to get married and have a family, find someone here in school, because as a woman, you won’t have the chance to after you become a lawyer.”

Fortunately, I was too busy studying to date, and wasn’t able to follow the professors’ advice.

A man who dislikes smart women must lack logic. I decided that I had no need to date men like that. Of course, these things weren’t a big source of stress for me, because they weren’t directly related to my studies or career. 

At a law school mock trial for armed robbery. ⓒDal

 Interning: Our law firm is women-friendly

In school, I often heard from peers that law firms prefer men, supposedly because the workload is high and late-night/weekend work is common, so it’s hard for women to bear. But I didn’t really believe that. I was sure that a rational hiring manager would hire based on ability, not an illogical gender-based prejudice. I guessed that the rumor was the overblown result of job-search anxiety.   

In law school, you use your vacations to do internships at various legal institutions. During the application period, several law firms come to campus to advertise. Students can’t help but be a little awed by these real lawyers, usually returning alumni of the school. A lot of students jump at the chance to see what these firms are about just because they are some of the more famous ones in the country. 

At the end of one company’s presentation, I raised my hand during the question-and-answer session and asked, “How many female lawyers are there in your firm?” The female lawyer the company had sent answered, “Our firm has a lot of female lawyers and is women-friendly. About thirty percent of our lawyers are women.”

If you can become “women-friendly” at just thirty-percent female, what does that make a firm that is seventy-percent male? Perhaps because she sensed our rumblings at that answer, that female lawyer came to find us after the formal question-and-answer session and told us, with an informal, big-sister manner:

“It’s true that women are at a disadvantage at any law firm. They don’t like it if you may have to take time off because of something like pregnancy or childcare, and childcare leave is out of the question in reality.  It’s better to get married and get your kid into day care (first) so that family issues can’t have much of an effect on your work.”  

I thought that, in that case, I’d have to not get married or have children.

We hear about “female workers” but the expression “male workers” doesn’t exist.
ⓒSchool vector designed by Freepik

At law firms, there are two types of women: female lawyers and female workers

There’s a new expression I learned while studying the law: “female workers.” The dictionary definition is an employed person who is female, but at law firms, it refers to the person who makes copies and fetches drinks. Everyone from professors who were once judges - people overflowing with erudition and good manners - all the way down to newbie lawyers say, “Have a female worker do it, they do the trivial tasks.”

I always felt uncomfortable when I heard “female worker.” Wouldn’t I, as a woman with a job, be a female worker when I got hired at a law firm? At one practicum for people who had passed the bar exam, they even taught us that “the trick to hiring a female worker” was to choose an obedient person who would run your errands well and not question you.

So there are two types of women at law firms. Female workers and female lawyers. The expression “male workers” doesn’t exist. Female lawyers are employees of the law firm, but they have to take on a tone, appearance, and attitude that differentiate them from the female workers. And female workers, in addition to their specialized legal tasks, have to do things like make coffee and prepare snack plates for guests.

This clear division of roles within the same company and despite our shared gender makes us internalize the idea that we are different from each other. At a career lecture held at my school, one lawyer alumnus gave us the friendly advice not to act like women by doing things like using a cutesy voice. How was she defining “women” to decide what feminine behavior and tone are, and how contradictory it was that she was telling us not to become women based on those standards! This is what I thought, but… I also, when I’m at work, purposely use a military tone and accompanying grammar forms, or try to make my high-ish voice lower. And every time I do that, I feel angry.

Law firm interviews: shameful personal questions 

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

Unbelievably, this is a question that is asked at interviews for hiring lawyers. I answer that I don’t and that I will live alone forever. Sometimes, after I’ve prepared for an interview by researching the cases that the firm often deal with, what I actually get asked are these shameful personal questions.  These questions are always uncomfortable and difficult to answer. 

In addition to personal questions, I am sometimes told that some tasks “don’t seem suitable for an unmarried [young] female lawyer.”

When I talk about these things with my peers, we make inferences, as is our habit. We come up with ideas in order to understand, one way or another, a result that has appeared. We create several reasons – that maybe the firm asks that because they discourage the use of child-care leave, that law firm owners prefer men because they see men working every night and weekend while women leave to take care of their families. Or we guess that their clients are older men who might find it hard to entrust their cases to young women. 

I think, “Asking those kinds of things means you are not a place with logical hiring standards!” and end up resolving not to work there even if I am offered a job.  

The main picture on the Supreme Court’s website. 

The lack of women is striking.  ⓒscourt.go.kr/supreme/supreme.html

 All I have to do is get truly smart, right?

Ever since I was young, every time I’ve run into a problem, I’ve tried to resolve it by having far superior skills. In middle and high school, when I studied hard, I was able to get recognition for my abilities and avoid much discrimination. In university, it was different in a few of my extracurricular activities, but at least there was justice as far as taking exams and getting credits. So I believe that if I make an effort, if I make an effort and improve my skills, society will treat me fairly in the end.

This isn’t a belief that’s unique to me, but one that’s shared with countless women like me - smart women who went to law school and now work as lawyer. We all got this far on our uncommon memorization and comprehension skills. So I want to think that if I develop that kind of ability further, I can compete just based on skill. So I continue to work harder and harder.

Maybe if I go to a place that only those who are really smart can go to, a place where you really compete on skill, then I won’t be told that smart women can’t have families and have to live alone forever. Maybe that place will hire excellent candidates without considering the “dangers” of maternity leave or housework, and will allow them to rise to honorable positions if they work hard. If that’s impossible, then, well, what can I do? The thing that got me this far is a belief in an “equal” world that may not really exist. 

I mean, there is no official preference to appoint men as Supreme Court justices. But when you look at a group picture of them in court, the maleness is striking. Majority male judges, majority male law professors, majority male lawyers unless it’s a firm that handles family litigation… To be honest, even though I know that this place is also a discriminatory world full of illogical prejudices, I want to ignore that knowledge; I close my eyes to ignore the fear that if I acknowledge it, I will lose my way. Even this place will judge me not on my efforts but on how I was born and things that I can’t change through effort. Every resume is required to have a picture attached and a gender specified.

Despite that, I believe that I might succeed if I don’t get married, if I live alone, if I don’t act like a woman – so if I give up on my gender, personal life, and future family. I want to believe that at least in that case, it’s possible.

But why do women have to do that in order to succeed?

*Original article: http://ildaro.com/sub_read.html?uid=7646