Courageuse

-- By JanePetersen - 03 May 2012

Courage, it seems, is a necessary component of being a good lawyer. In reading about and discussing Martha Tharaud, Sandra Fluke, and John Brown, I couldn’t help but ask myself if I have the courage of these role models. Given my career aspirations in international law and foreign policy, I am certain I will need it in spades.

Invisibility

Tharaud’s story resonated with me personally. The connection I felt was not because I have a particular interest in labor law, but because of her powerful discussion of the indignities suffered being a woman in law practice. It was clear throughout the piece that her womanhood affected not only her own career and what she thought of lawyers, but informed the way she thought about the law and the world. As a young female lawyer, she says she was invisible. Not only that, but her invisibility made her dangerous. It is a courageous move indeed to be thought of as powerless and yet to make oneself dangerous to others. This is a practice I have tried to emulate in the past, and hope I have the courage to perfect. Better still, I hope it is a practice that becomes obsolete.

I worked for four years before attending law school, the last of which I spent in the political-military office of the U.S. Department of State. Like Martha Tharaud when she began law practice, I was a very young woman in a heavily male-dominated field. Similarly as well, to many around me I was invisible. Some of the men would ask me to fetch them coffee, though this was certainly not my job. Many expected that, when I handed down an assignment or requested a meeting, they could simply ignore me. Little did they realize, despite my deferential demeanor and diminutive presence, I had power. I had constant access and the ear of the boss, who valued my judgment – often above others’. Because they thought I was powerless, they spoke freely around me in the absence of our boss. This was when I realized my invisibility was an asset.

Transformation

Growing up privileged with progressive parents and feeling as though all opportunities were open to me, I had not thought of myself as a feminist until recent years. However, experience has melted away my naïveté and I have learned more about how the real world works. What I’ve learned shocked me out of my complacence as to my own opportunities. I grew determined to make change. I came to law school because these are issues for lawyers and policymakers alike, and I hope one day to be both.

I look forward to the day when the young, bright woman isn’t invisible (unless she so chooses). Further still, I hope to be someone who contributes to this achievement. Though many people might respond that this is 2012, not the 1950s – women have made considerable progress since Martha Tharaud’s day. While I certainly hope this is true, it is quite apparent that we have not made nearly enough. This is evident to me in Rush Limbaugh’s reference to Sandra Fluke as a “slut” and a “prostitute.” I would like to think I would show the poise and bravery she did in the face of such hatred. I expect this will soon be tested.

The utter insufficiency of progress is further evident to me in the way women are treated throughout the world. Abused, raped, mutilated, enslaved, and generally relegated to the status of second-class citizens, women do not enjoy equal status anywhere. For example, in Egypt, the criminal code provides that if a husband beats his wife with good intentions then he will not be subject to criminal penalties. In Saudi Arabia, women are not permitted to vote or to drive. Far from being unique to non-Western countries, United States laws codify the abuse of women as well. In mandating transvaginal ultrasounds, a handful of U.S. states require the rape of pregnant women who wish to obtain abortions.

I think it would be a good idea to reconsider the use of "rape" here. When lawyers use legal terms in non-technical ways they are risking being thought professionally irresponsible, usually without sufficient reason to take the risk. "Rape" means non-consensual sexual penetration. Here, the complaint is not that the invasive medical procedure is non-consensual in the relevant legal sense, but rather that it is an "unconstitutional condition," some act or forbearance required by the state in order to exercise a constitutional right. That it is an "undue burden," in the language used by Justice O'Connor in Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, and an unconstitutional interference in the doctor-patient relationship under the principle established in Roe v. Wade, to require a doctor to perform and a woman to undergo an otherwise unnecessary invasive medical procedure because she wishes to terminate her pregnancy (as she has a constitutional right to do) seems as evident to me as it does to you. But to say that the state regulation requires rape seems clearly to imply that there's a rapist. Theoretically, the rapist, the person undertaking the procedure, is the doctor, nurse practitioner, or other professional. So would you actually conclude that any doctor conducting an ultrasound under the relevant unconstitutional state regulations is prosecutable as a rapist? I wouldn't, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't either. Which means, I think, you need to use another phrase.

Conviction

These are legal problems as well as political ones. John Brown sacrificed his life and the lives of his sons to fight for profound change. It would be the height of hubris to pretend that I intend literally to sacrifice my life and those of my loved ones for this cause, or to feign I would take my goals to their logical and most radical conclusions. I aspire, however, to devote much of my life to achieving real equality for women and to emulate Brown in the depth of his conviction, if not the tactics.

It will require considerable courage to make the deep, pervasive, and meaningful changes that are necessary. Political correctness and religious tolerance are used to defend and enshrine abuse; women who dare to speak out are vilified as “feminazis”; and many of the world’s worst perpetrators are geopolitically shielded because they have oil, nuclear weapons, or some other chit more valuable than women’s bodies and freedoms.

The “War on Women” is not being fought between Republicans and Democrats. This so-called War, older and more entrenched than all other metaphorical culture wars, is largely a worldwide rout. It will remain so, unless more people join the right side of the fight. I hope I continue to build the courage and the skills it will require to turn the tide.

A good start. I think the primary weakness to address is that the essay starts off about courage, about the character of the lawyer, and winds up on the substance of a particular fight: that for women's equality globally. You can go from one to the other, but I think you might want to do it in a tighter structure, showing how the two are related from the beginning, particularly in presenting the idea that joins them, which I think is more than autobiography. Perhaps you need the Thareau/self comparison, because the intermediate term (invisibility) is related to your argument overall, or perhaps not. Until the central theme has been directly stated, it's hard to tell.

I don't mean to question the mission, but by the end of the piece you are talking about turning the tide of the worldwide War on Women. If that's the scope, it's big indeed, because that war has been going on for the whole of human history, and turning the tide on it means changing fundamentally the nature of social structure and power in the lives of almost all the people on earth. Courage is one property required for that outcome, but sheer power, exercised either by the immense collectivity of women or by one hell of a vanguard of the revolution also seems necessary. In that context, isn't even courage the least of the matter?