Femmebloggers, or Where My Ladies At?

Though emphatically not a feminist, I love the Feminist Law Profs Blog. The blog asks again: Where my ladies at? (See here, in one of many x chromosome-heavy law reviews, and here, from an “all dude” Capital Markets symposium.)

Ladies, I love you, but…you’re blogging. Men are blogging too, obvi, but there are more of them than there are of us in the Academy, so if we want presence we have to present!

This post, for instance, suggesting that men don’t typically experience their “come to Jesus” moment for feminism until they have daughters, mentions the author’s plight to stop her father from referring to skirted opposition as “lady lawyers.” Doesn’t this glib, sexist dismissal merit more attention than a single silent blog post?

Indeed I frequently use the phrase “lawyerette.” When my college sorority recruited freshmen each fall we were prohibited from referring to the young ladies as “girls”; we were required to say “women” or some other more respectful derivation. Since when have professionals in this field held less respect for our “y”-blessed ranks than the 20-year-old stringently unfeminist Kappas I knew?

I’ve discussed role models before. Most of my favorite professors in law school have (happily!) been women. That is not to say that most of my professors have been women; only that those w/ whom I’ve connected have been those women I adore. I would just ask that we go forth and prosper or relish our nurturing roles in other areas. But to ask “Where are the women?” on a blog rings like a depressing tautology.