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Title: Pinstripes & Pearls: The Women of the Harvard Law Class of '64 Who Forged an Old Girl Network and Paved the Way for Future Generations by Judith Richards Hope, Kathleen Sullivan ISBN: 0-7432-1482-X Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.57 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An Exceptionally Beautiful, Moving and Interesting Book
Comment: Before commenting on this book, let me mention that I am a graduate of Harvard Law School in 1971. By then, women were about 10 percent of the class, and some of the problems described in this book had been overcome. But many had not. Since then, I have had the pleasure of attending many of the special celebrations on the anniversaries of the admission of women to the school on September 1950. But in those gatherings, I have heard few stories as moving as the ones in this book.
This book moved me even more than the fine memoir, One-L, that has become a classic concerning legal education.
Ms. Judith Richards Hope is one of the most successful graduates of Harvard Law School in the last 40 years. Many in her situation would have chosen to write a memoir, basically recounting how she did so well. I admire her for choosing to write the story of all the 20 women in her class (1964) and also including the remarkable Elizabeth Dole who worked in the library during that class's first year before deciding to apply and join the class of 1965.
The book begins with the history of why women had been excluded from Harvard Law School. Mostly it's nonsense about not being sure of the intellectual capacity of women, not wanting to keep a man from practicing law who might stick with it for more years than a women, concern about whether law firms would hire women, and the cost of putting in women's bathrooms. It's not a pretty story, but that's all history now. Women saw, they came, and they persevered and prospered.
If you are like me, you'll enjoy hearing about the family backgrounds that encouraged these women to enter what was a challenging and hostile educational environment. The silliness at the school will alternately amuse and annoy you. There weren't enough bath rooms. Some professors chose to have Ladies Days when they would call on women, and ignore them otherwise. Well-intentioned efforts often backfired and made the women feel uncomfortable . . . such as when Dean Griswold had everyone over for dinner at his home.
The law firm silliness was even worse. It was impressive how the women got around that. Ms. Hope's negotiating strategy with Edward Bennett Williams was remarkable.
Then, trying to be a perfect mom and a great lawyer created even more silliness . . . and lots of fatigue. But they did it. It's great!!!
I know many of the people described in the book, and I thought that they were characterized accurately with one exception. Eleanor Appel of the Placement Office comes in for a lot of criticism for not trying to make law firms change their prejudiced ways. What the book does not make clear is that Ms. Appel was not a lawyer. She was a Radcliffe graduate. With no one in the faculty to back her in forcing recruiters to change, all she could have accomplished was getting herself fired by trying to make recruiters change. I personally overheard many conversations she had where she argued effectively the case that women and minorities should receive better treatment, and observed the white male lawyers then go on to ignore her arguments. If there is a fault, it is with the faculty. They had the bully pulpit to do more, but did not.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand how women get to be tops in the legal profession. I even more highly recommend it as a story of human struggle and success.
These are remarkable people, and they have already made our world a better one for their willingness to run the gauntlet in the legal profession. Thank you, women of the class of 1964!
Where else are people being excluded from opportunities? What can you do to change that?
Rating: 5
Summary: This book is amazing!
Comment: If you are a woman who struggles to balance career aspirations with a dedication to domestic ideals this is a must-read book. In an honest and compassionate manner Hope details the lives of the women in her class. These are women who listened to their intellectual hearts despite society's pressure to hold them back. I am inspired!
Rating: 4
Summary: A Great Anecdotal History
Comment: As someone who was born after Ms. Hope entered law school at Harvard, this personal history of the struggles against the overt and covert discrimination women faced in the '60's is an eye opener. I can't imagine dealing with the unabashed sexism that Ms. Hope and her contemporaries encountered, yet here it is, detailed in anecdote after anecdote.
The book is a series of personal histories that enlighten all of us about the struggles women and men alike went through to get to the precarious balance of sexual politics that we live in today. In the telling, Ms. Hope illuminates the conflicts that women experience to this day while trying to balance work and family. One of the most painful passages of the book reveals Ms. Hope's own children's ambivalence about her accomplishments as a lawyer, mother and woman.
This book is not just an opportunity for 60-something lawyers to reminisce about their salad days. It's important for my contemporaries of both genders to understand the stories of the 1960's were much more than "flower power" hippies protesting Vietnam or sitting around taking drugs and listening to the Beatles. We can do no worse than starting with this book that tells the stories of a small group of women's experiences at Harvard Law School in the early '60's and their struggles to balance careers and family in the turbulent years that followed. Also, if you can read this book and not regret the lost potential of Pat Schroeder's aborted presidential campaign, you're a stronger person than I.
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Title: Women Lawyers: Rewriting the Rules by Mona Harrington ISBN: 0452273676 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: January, 1995 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Old Girls' Network: Insider Advice for Women Building Businesses in a Man's World by Sharon Whiteley, Connie Duckworth, Kathy Elliott ISBN: 073820806X Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: 12 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Women Don't Ask : Negotiation and the Gender Divide by Linda Babcock, Sara Laschever ISBN: 069108940X Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 02 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Letters to a Young Lawyer by Alan M. Dershowitz ISBN: 0465016316 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 16 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: The Wife: A Novel by Meg Wolitzer ISBN: 0684869403 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 14 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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