How Dare She?

The Blonding of Women Lawyers

Our foremothers fought long and hard so women could be taken seriously. So why, when I opened my New York Times this morning, did I see the image of an attorney on the front page, whose hair was dyed blonde to make her look like what we used to call "blonde bimbos." I wrote an essay some years back on this topic for Skirt Magazine.

I first noticed this trend among women lawyers back in 1992 when I arrived late to Torts class and sat up in the back. My eyes scanned down over my classmates and I was struck by all the dark roots. And all the dyed blonde heads. This was before the rest of the country went blonde. Back when women professionals used to arrive at work fully clothed. Now, 15 years later, it's hard to find a woman in a law firm that doesn't have a see-through blouse unbuttoned to her bra-line, short skirts, bare legs and brightly painted toes stuffed into stiletto heels. Watching women walk around law firms these days is like watching re-runs of the Loveboat. What happened?

Please don't start me on the whole, "Women should stop trying to be like men," nonsense. For the last time, pants are not male and neither are shoulder pads. Shoulder pads are placed in men's jackets to make their shoulders look broader and to make them look more powerful. Why are we afraid of women looking powerful is the question we should be asking.

Meanwhile, these women show up, half-naked and dressed like prostitutes, and insist on being treated exactly the same as the men and paid the same as the men. I don't blame men for being confused because I sure am. If I needed a lawyer and one showed up with chemicals all over her head and couldn't be bothered to wear some kind of stockings or socks or put a jacket on, and a man showed up well-groomed with his normal hair color and a buttoned up shirt - and socks! - I'd hire him in a heartbeat, because clearly he shows better judgment.

If I learned anything during the two years I lived in a college sorority (yes, it's true), it's that women dress like their mothers and date men like their fathers. Thank you, Mom, for setting a standard for dressing professionally, stylishly and with some dignity. And I'll thank you again, silently, next time I get in the elevator with one of the young women in my building carrying a briefcase and trying to tug down the shirt that doesn't fully cover her stomach, exposing her red thong underwear to the world.

She Won't Back Down: Fiorina's Memoir "Tough Choices"

By Lisa Nuss

One day when my nephew Jackson was four, I piled him into my brother’s Chevy truck and walked around to the driver’s seat.  As I started the engine, Jackson looked over at me with alarm.  "That's Daddy's seat!  You're sitting in Daddy's seat!"  It dawned on me he had never seen anyone else drive his Dad’s truck.  "It's okay,” I said, “we're just going to the store."  He folded his little arms and tiny elbows, and frowned as we backed out of the driveway.

When I later saw the Annie Leibovitz photograph of Carly Fiorina sitting in the Hewlett Packard corporate jet, I flashbacked to my nephew’s alarm.  And I immediately understood the "controversy" over Fiorina’s use of the corporate jet.  Not long after Fiorina was named CEO of HP in 1999, the media criticized her for using the corporate jet, wearing Italian suits (“too flashy”) and “trotting all over the world” making speeches:  all behaviors expected from CEOs of lesser companies.  I venture that my nephew’s tantrum is comparable to those media criticisms, precisely because we aren’t used to seeing a woman sitting in the CEO position.

Fiorina famously declined to discuss the “women in power” double standards during the six years she ran HP.  She explains in her new memoir, “Tough Choices,” that leading a Fortune 500 company was proof that women could make it through the glass ceiling. But in her book, Fiorina doesn’t shy away from detailing encounters with men who tried to “pigeonhole” her along her climb up the management ladder at AT&T.  She finds ways of making sure higher-ups don’t exclude her from important meetings.  She interrupts a man who is ranting at her.  She navigates the sexual activities that businessmen have accustomed themselves to by either going along where she can (by enjoying the company of the female dinner companion a Korean client provided for her) or challenging those “customs” when the need arises. 

When Fiorina assumed her position at HP, she said, "I didn't want to talk about being a woman in business.  I wanted to talk about business."  I don’t blame her. For six years Forbes Magazine named her the Most Powerful Woman in Business.  But the inevitable questions about “how does it feel to be a woman CEO” suggest there’s something out of place about that.  Men don’t get asked what it’s like to be a male CEO.

Fiorina was running with the big boys, and she had the chops to be there.  She earned her way up AT&T by being very smart, courageous and decisive, hard-working and developing a flair for leadership.  She graduated from the elite MIT Sloan School of Management in addition to her M.B.A.  But why do I feel compelled to list her credentials?

In the Leibovitz photo, Fiorina is seated at the back of the corporate jet.  You see the fine leather seats and the phone on the wall; you see Fiorina as CEO dressed in a dark suit, with a classy leather portfolio and fountain pen on the seat next to her.  And she looks like she belongs there.  I suspect that’s what ultimately unnerves her critics.  Her expression is not apologetic; she doesn’t look like she feels out of place.  She doesn’t look like a woman in a man’s world.  She looks at ease – capable and very comfortable in this ultimate seat of corporate power.

As for my nephew, he pouted all the way to the store.  Since I love the little guy, I gave it one more shot, "Jackson, you know I'm your Dad's sister and he trusts me very much and that's why he lets me take care of you, and drive his truck."  The frown vanished - he either bought my explanation or was distracted by the candy aisle.  Would that adults were swayed so easily.

10.25.06

Female Governors Fight Uphill Battle

(Published May 19, 2002, in the Montana Missoulian)

When Massachusetts' acting Gov. Jane Swift withdrew from the race for re-election earlier this year, she became part of a disturbing trend.  Swift joins four other women governors who were so low in the polls by the end of their first term that they were losing in the primary against men from their own party.

There are only five states with women governors - the most ever at one time. The Center for American Women in Politics tracks data about women governors and a few trends have surfaced. Women tend to win in open seats, meaning they have little success in races against incumbents. Once in office, women governors tend not to get re-elected. Ironically, the power of incumbency does not attach to women.

Certain sectors flat out won't vote for a woman governor. A poll conducted by the Barbara Lee Family Foundation found that seniors, blue-collar men and women who are homemakers admit a bias against women in executive positions like governor. What's odd is that those of us willing to vote for a woman governor set about picking her apart the minute she's inaugurated. The governor's office bestows a stature on men that women have to earn. Few do.

It starts with nagging doubts about whether she's qualified. Montana Gov. Judy Martz's political and business experience is often belittled. In fact, her four years as lieutenant governor add up to more political experience than Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had combined when they were elected governors.

Joan Finney was the state treasurer of Kansas for 16 years before she was elected governor in 1990. In the Wichita Eagle, her critics claimed that her "fuzzy grasp of the issues and lack of leadership threatened to damage the state." These attitudes are consistent with the Lee Foundation's finding that voters project more experience and knowledge onto men who have the same background as women.

Remember the prediction that once women gained the same experience as men, they would rise to positions of power? Gov. Swift sprinted through the political pipeline: Elected to the state Senate in her 20s, she rose to a leadership position in the legislature, then ran a state agency and a division of the port authority before being elected lieutenant governor and finally succeeding to the governor's office. Here's how the Wall Street Journal disparaged her credentials: "(Swift is) a political neophyte widely seen as not ready for the top job." One wonders what type of experience would make a woman ready for the top job.

Being governor is a difficult and demanding job; every governor has successes and failures. But once we convince ourselves that a woman is in over her head, every problem - no matter how small - can be seen as further proof she's not executive material.

Gov. Martz's missteps and impolitic statements have caused her approval ratings to plunge.  George W. Bush's tenure as governor of Texas was marked by wrong moves and blunders, yet people still liked him and his approval ratings were high.

Some theorize that women haven't caught up with men in knowing how to cover-up and spin away their problems.  Think Bill Clinton dispatching Vernon Jordan to clean up his messes.

The national media lavished attention on Gov. Swift's gaffes and miscues. One insider described the scandal mongering around Swift as reaching "a lunatic level." She faced numerous ethics charges and even a legal action claiming she was unfit to do the job.  London's business and political magazine, the Economist, saw this "string of scandals" for what it was: "Some of these things, done by a man, might have been more easily forgiven. ... But Massachusetts, despite its liberal reputation, has trouble with women in high office."

The constant undermining fed on itself to the point where Swift was taunted as "Jane Err" and "Not so Swift." After a parallel chain of events in Montana, letters-to-the-editor now deride Gov. Martz as a "national joke" and an "incompetent know-nothing."

Our treatment of women governors is eerily similar. The scholarly explanation for this behavior, provided by academics Sue Freeman and Susan Bourque in Women on Power, is that women who "occupy male-dominated leadership positions are apt to be evaluated negatively in light of the gender role incongruency."

I prefer James Carville's typically candid explanation. When asked to explain the resistance to Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate race in Susan Estrich's book Sex & Power, Carville replied, "There are some people who don't like ambitious women and they ain't going to vote for her."

Martha's Only Crime: Acting Like a Tough Guy

(Originally published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch)


By LISA NUSS
02/18/2004

My first job in San Francisco after college and before law school was as a temporary receptionist for a large law firm. On my first day, I got a call from a demanding man who grew impatient as I looked for the extension of the attorney he was calling. After several seconds, he screamed into the phone, "Do you know who you're talking to?" He insisted that I read him the fourth name down from the top of the letterhead. Of course, it was his.

Headlines across the country have proclaimed shock that Martha Stewart was apparently rude to, yelled at and hung up on Douglas Faneuil, a broker's assistant at Merrill Lynch at least four times! To Mr. Faneuil - who complained, "I have never, ever been treated more rudely" - I say, welcome to my world.

The trivial incidents he recounted pale in comparison to what I've encountered from powerful men after 20 years of working in politics and law. In Washington, D.C., and on the West Coast from Seattle to San Francisco, I have seen men who are pillars of their community throw chairs, scream, belittle and demean people, including me, on a regular basis.

I don't defend this behavior. I'm just saying it happens. And I'm asking why what is common behavior by (some) powerful men merits salacious news stories when it comes from a woman? So what if Stewart was demanding? She has to be one of Merrill Lynch's premier clients; they also manage her corporation's pension fund. I've put up with all manner of callous rudeness from powerful male clients because higher-ups expect us to treat plum clients with kid gloves.

Could you imagine a newspaper article criticizing Donald Trump because one young woman was offended that Trump was curt and demanding to her? Sounds trivial, doesn't it?

Feminists disagree about the solution to this double standard. Some argue that it's not progress to sink to the level of men. I tend to be guided by the principle of "What's good for the goose is good for the gander."

I worry about the undercurrent of vengeance in the attacks on Stewart. Sure, as a public figure, Stewart's stilted persona is fair fodder for NBC's "Saturday Night Live" skits, and her perfection-oriented household designs make for good parody. But the public flogging of Stewart has become so base, it's as if we can't wait to kick her to the curb.

A feature about Stewart on the Salon Web site justified its harsh tone with examples of bad her behavior that still pale in comparison to powerful men. In his book "Martha, Inc.," Christopher Byron declares Stewart shockingly ruthless, because when her husband became ill on a trip to South America she did some sightseeing instead of sitting next to his bed the entire time.

I would be violating some confidences if I detailed the way I've seen some powerful men treat their wives, but I can tell you none would ever be expected to chain themselves to their wives' sickbeds.

A profile in Vanity Fair described Stewart as a polarizing figure, ". . . (a) reassuring and maternal presence to some, a disturbing and negative force to others." Those are the only choices? That statement actually says more about the limited roles we expect women to stick to and our reaction when they don't.

The day that Stewart's company went public, she rang the opening bell for trading at the New York Stock Exchange. It was a powerful image and confirmed her status as a brilliant entrepreneur who had reached the pinnacle of money and power in this country.

Stewart never would have been so successful if she had confined herself to behaviors approved by society for women. I wonder if that's why we're now punishing her.

E-mail: lisanuss@msn.com

Lisa Nuss is a lawyer and freelance writer living in Mill Valley, Calif.