The very presence of women in law—normal as it may seem to us today—signals revolutionary change in a social order that for centuries entrusted control over its rules to men. Mona Harrington examines both the problems women meet when they claim equal authority as rule makers and the impact of new perspectives and issues that women bring with them into the profession. On the basis of more than one hundred interviews with women lawyers, judges, and law school professors and students, and through the stories of their daily experiences, Harrington pinpoints and analyzes the key factors holding women back in a profession still dominated by males—among them the “men’s club” ambience, the focus on billable hours, sexual harassment and the inequality it perpetuates, lingering unequal division of labor at home, and hostile media images of women in positions of power.
