Blog 27

Blog 27

The competency gap. What is it and how do we overcome it? As concerns attorneys, the competency gap may be a fabricated notion in many instances. For many years, the field of law was totally or nearly totally male. Then women started to decide they wanted to be lawyers. Unfortunately, this male dominated field had a large number of “good old boy” networks that were not about to let women in. Far too many of these men are still making it very hard for women to become successful in the practice of law. I think of one female lawyer I know personally who is an excellent lawyer. Her husband is also a lawyer. She got where she did because she and her husband became law partners, so she obviously did not have to fight a whole bunch of males for cases.
Another way in which the competency gap is portrayed is that female attorneys are often thought to not be as competent as men if they are married and have a family. Since it usually seems to be the mother and not the father that has to go pick up a sick child from school, or has to take care of the kids at other times, they are considered to not be as competent and able to handle the pressures of the profession. In reality, I believe the women are much more competent and able to handle the pressures of being an attorney or any other profession. Show me how many male attorneys could do everything that a married female attorney does. The men would buckle under the strain and pressure. For many years, the female has been called the weaker sex. They are, of course, called this by males. Males are truly the weaker sex. Until this fact is accepted and believed, the competency gap will always exist. (Word count – 309)