Niamh Howlin, University College Dublin College of Business and Law, has posted Women as Both Insiders and Outsiders in the History of the Legal Profession:
Much recent focus has been on historic ‘firsts’ or ‘trailblazers’, but it is important not to let this obscure the broader story of how women experienced working in the legal professions. Indeed, this point was made twenty years ago by Bacik, Costello and Drew who observe, ‘[t]his phenomenon of the highly visible trailblazer woman should be understood not necessarily as an example of ‘advances’ made by women, but as a reminder of continuing male domination.’ Glazer and Slater identify strategies employed by early women professionals: superperformance, separatism, subordination and innovation. They add that while early women professionals did not consciously choose such strategies, ‘it quickly became clear to them that entrance into the elite world of professionalism would require special strategies for women.’ ‘Superperforming’ women were pioneers, and often achieved historic ‘firsts.’ Bacik, Costello and Drew refer to this as the ‘first woman to’ phenomenon, and caution that this ‘does not necessarily provide evidence of absence of discrimination, but rather often signals the continued and persistent exclusion of women – the exception that proves the rule.’
While recognizing the significance of the trailblazers and ‘famous firsts’, this paper seeks to go beyond commemoration, to consider the lived experiences of women at the Irish Bar in the twentieth century. It looks at the challenges they faced, the type of work they did and the strategies they adopted to succeed in a gendered environment. This paper draws on archival research as well as interviews conducted with men and women who were in practice at the Irish Bar from the 1950s until the late 1990s. --Dan Ernst
