STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Dizzy · Marc Jacobs

law school culture...

esquiress · Marc Jacobs

that so sucks. i'm just waiting for you to be out of there as well. at this point, here's all i can offer in terms of advice: do your reading, write the best exams you can and as for the power play/sexist bullsh*t, just say screw it. if you're surrounded by a**holes, let that be their problem. it doesn't matter who talks more or who the prof is favoring in class, the only thing that really matters is one test at the end of the semester, so give it your ALL. that's the only thing that gets a grade, and the prof doesn't know whose test is whose, right? so just let the negative and sexist behavior just be annoying background noise that you can just learn to ignore. i know it's frustrating but right now i just want you to nail those exams and prove those motherf**kers wrong. do whatever it takes, get a tutor/study buddy, buy outlines/study guides, and just study study study. don't doubt yourself or think that you can't do it, you CAN do it, dizzy. you just have to believe in yourself--PLEASE. the only way the a**holes win is if they get you to lose your faith in yourself. so don't let that happen!

as for my experience, i don't know if it will make you feel better or worse my professors rocked, even the boring ones were sincere and helpful and really wanted to see me get it. i remember them going above and beyond, sitting with me for hours, answering every question i had, pushing me to think things through. they were so amazing and kind. it really really really saddens me that your profs are not like that. but i have heard about experiences like yours--from my own profs actually. i just went back to my law school for a chair endowment ceremony and one of the profs was giving a speech and he was talking about when he first met my prof who was getting honored. they'd first met when they were both in law school at harvard (and now they are both profs @ usc, where i went for law school) and this prof told a story about how one of his profs had literally said he didn't have time to talk because he had "important television shows to watch." can you believe the arrogance?! but somehow this prof and my prof survived and are now profs themselves. so you never know sweetie, you just might become a prof and then you can give students the positive experience you never had. so here's hoping.

-- Edited by esquiress at 19:36, 2006-02-23

honey · Gucci

this is something that has been weighing heavily on my mind a lot latel, and is definitely going to play a role in my final school decision. i was discussing it with a friend the other day. in short i'm a fashiony girl (even though i hate that term) but i feel like it's something that won't necessarily go over well, esp. in a grad school environment. as it is, i feel like you have to work twice as hard to earn respect when you're a woman, and god forbid you care about grooming and personal style. i feel like a lot of people don't realize that you can be interested in your appearance and not be a total flake. i actually had a minor freak out about it last week b/c i've spent the past couple of years enmeshed in all things fashionable and soon i'm going to be an environment where cute little outfits might be detrimental. i know it sounds crazy but part of me feels like i might have to tone it down a bit b/f i go to school, at least long enough to make sure people take me seriously. honestly it makes me sad.

that's all i have to say, but i'm sure i'll have plenty of stories to swap with you in the coming months.

Eurodaisy · Dooney & Bourke

Dizzy wrote:

I am counting the days until I get out of here, btw, y'all. And does anyone have advice for dealing with this? At work, you can shut it down by just saying "Of course we're all here to get the job done..." But school is NOT like that. We're not here to do anything. We're just talking. And whoever gets to talk has the power...

I feel the same way you do, especially in my third year.... that we're all "just talking," and that class is often a waste of time.

But think about it... these people don't have any real "power," no matter how much they speak up. Just because professors like them and let them speak does not mean they will be good lawyers or earn the respect of their peers when they actually start practicing. Law school is not real life; it's over in three quick years, you take the bar, and then you're out there making it on your own... and there's no professor to boast your ego at the expense of others. It's just about how good you are.

Besides, the people who made the best grades in my class are the ones that don't speak up as much. And it's the grades that do the talking once you start looking for work.

jen · Kate Spade

I feel the same way. Because I wear fashionable clothes and have blonde hair, people in my artsy fartsy upper level English/Lit classes assume I'm a dumbass. They really do not listen to anything I have to say and each semester I have to EARN my respect. Why is that? People who care what they look like cannot be smart? It's crazy!

Bastet · Kate Spade

I didn't experience any sexist profs while in law school, but I did experience the (sorry if I offend!) stereotypical guy from the deep south who thinks women should be home cleaning his house. He didin't understand why women went to college. Ugh! A lot of women purposely argued with him in class, because he got so visibly rattled that a woman would *gasp* speak up against him. It became kind of a sport.

Law school culture sucks in general but my classmates for the most part were supportive, and didn't jump on a person who showed weakness. It sounds like your school has a large number of a$$holes. I don't think you're being overly sensitive.

The best way to deal with jackasses is to ignore them when possible. The few a$$holes at my school tried to make the people around them feel unsure of themselves so that they wouldn't do as well. I dealt with this behavior by never studying at the law school. I went to coffee shops or just studied in my apartment. That way, I was concentrating on learning the stuff and not worrying about the junior high behavior going on in the law school library. I also didn't talk about exams or the reading with people I thought only wanted to try and make me doubt myself. I let them get to me once during my first year and after that I realized that if I didn't give them any information about what I knew/how much I studied/what I didn't know, they had no ammo and couldn't get to me.

I don't know how to deal with their behavior in small groups because it seems like your prof is part of the problem.

blubirde · Chanel

I know where you're coming from, Dizzy. My experience wasn't so much with the profs (although it was well known which profs had a thing for students) but with the male law students.

Law school was actually the first time I was faced with blatant sexism. It permeated the culture there and it was appalling. I almost quit law school just to put the whole atmosphere behind me. Luckily I realized running away wasn't the answer but yeah, it sucks.

I can't say it's necessarily better in the legal world either. It's not so blatant or obvious, but at so many firms women are just seen as biding their time until they leave work to be SAHM or something. When I started the job I have now, there were 2 female attorneys at my agency (out of 5 men) and 1 was always working at a different location and 1 was part time and didn't do any legal work. So essentially I was the first woman to show up everyday and try to incorporate myself into their world. (I'm not knocking my job b/c they've never been sexist in the slightest but I'm just point out an obvious fact.)

Unfortunately it's something we, as women, especially women in a professional world have to deal with and attempt to better. I don't know the answer but plugging away at school and showing up to work everyday as a major player helps. I think it does anyway.

Stay strong and keep at it, dizzy. It'll all be over soon and you'll have a whole other world of assholes to deal with.

Dizzy · Marc Jacobs

Thanks for being so supportive guys - I don't know why this bothers me so much. It's not the first time I've been in a sexist environment. I never thought I'd say this, but I miss work assholes. At least they made sense and you could ignore them. But school seems to be the place where assholes really thrive. My school is seriously like an asshole enclave, where they can all escape from the real world and pretend they matter. I need to stop believing that it's real. They're just assholes, they can't hurt me... (closes eyes tightly and holds teddy bear).

uesgirl · BCBG

I didn't find that in law school-- and actually, I was kind of surprised not to find that. I guess because when I went to law school, Legally Blonde had just come out :)

Just remember, grading is blind (or at least at my school it was?) so what happens in the classroom means very little at the end of the day. And you'll probably find that there is little correlation between talking in class and grades.

Sorry to hear that you aren't happy :( Luckily, law school is only three years. I don't think that there would be any lawyers if it was any longer!

sfclinevandy · Coach

uesgirl wrote:

IJust remember, grading is blind (or at least at my school it was?) so what happens in the classroom means very little at the end of the day. And you'll probably find that there is little correlation between talking in class and grades.

That's what I've found too. I'm a mute in class and just roll my eyes at the profs' obnoxious favorites who love to hear themselves talk. I've just accepted that almost everything associated with law school sucks.

bumblebee · Coach

poor dizzy. i'm sorry it's happening to you. just think, someday when you are a lawyer, you won't be a totally dependent whiny child whose support staff hates you so much that they spend their days devising strategies for f**king with you. not that i know what that's like.