Last Friday I took part in a in a comedy debate titled, ‘Where the women at?” The debate was organised by Pride in Law and co-hosted by MinterEllison’s PRiME (pride, respect & inclusion at MinterEllison) committee. Her Honour, Judge Kefford chaired the debate. The debate was inspired by the 2018 PWC Report ‘Where are all the Women’ which outlined research into the low visibility and engagement of same-sex attracted women in the workplace.
I was assigned to the affirmative team alongside Jennifer Veiga and Yasmin Murry. Our position was, “Women are here and some of us are queer!”
The ‘opposition,’ consisting of Borcsa Vass, Joanne Stagg-Taylor and Kathryn Schmidt, argued that, “Not enough women are here, you need to hear!”
While this was not my first debate or comedy performance, it was definitely the first time the two crossed paths. To say I was nervous would be an understatement. Not only did I have to come up with a clever bio (which would be read by a District Court Judge), I was the first debater! After all, it’s only fitting that the the peak professional body of the legal profession lead the discussion, right?
Her Honour read my bio, outlining the reasons why I was a ‘bargain buy for diversity and minority representation’ before speaking to my formal qualifications; an attempt to retain some credibility as a speaker.
I thought I’d begin by asking how many members in the audience identified as women and if they were comfortable, would they raise their hand. I would then ask how many of those women identified as queer. I knew for a fact there would be queen women in attendance.
Brilliant, I thought. I could mic drop and call it a win, clearly women are here and some are queer. How was the opposition going to debate against the existence of the women sitting before them?
Then it occurred to me — it’s always a bit nerve-wracking participating as an audience member at a comedy event — you never know what you’ve put your hand up for!
If my live polling wasn’t going to work, I needed a backup: real data. The National Profile of Solicitors, to be precise. The 2018 Report indicated that nationally, the the legal profession is now 52% female and Queensland is 51% female. The statistics also showed that newly admitted lawyers are over 60% female.
While the National profile of Solicitors doesn’t report on sexual orientation, according to 2014 figures from Roy Morgan Research, Roy Morgan is Australia’s best known and longest established market research company, the proportion of Australians who identify themselves as gay or lesbian is increasing. In fact, those who say they are homosexual has been on the rise since 2008, when 2.4 per cent of the population agreed with the statement: “I consider myself a homosexual.” By 2011 that figure was 3.1 per cent and by 2014 the figure had risen to 3.4 per cent.
So women are here and some of them are queer, but in true Robert Greene fashion, I knew I had to crush my ‘opponents’ completely. In the limited time I had left, I thought I’d make two key points:
Firstly, coming out (at work) is a choice and we are not always privy to the circumstances around that choice. It could be safety, security or just a desire to keep their personal life, private. So while there may be many more queer women in the profession, they may not be ‘out’ and drawing a negative conclusion (that being, that “not enough queer women are here”) is dismissive to those women and their circumstances.
Secondly, out looks different for everyone. In an attempt to draw a cheap laugh, I brought up veganism. I try to adopt a plant-based lifestyle, but you won’t see me raiding a farm any time soon. Did that mean I don’t care (enough) about animals? Or make me less of a vegan? And by whose definition?
Taking a stroll down memory lane, I reminded my opponents that not too long ago, those who identified as homosexual or expressed homosexual desires were dismissed as having a mental disorder or having something fundamentally wrong with them- just because they fit (or didn’t fit) certain criteria. So how could that community now, subject others to similar prejudice when they elect not to ‘fit into’ a particular understanding of ‘out.’
Did that make these women any less capable of creating inclusive and supportive workplaces? Or driving positive cultural change? Hell no.
The PWC Report found that, “while great for workplace engagement, the data shows the presence of ‘out’ role models doesn’t in itself encourage people to come out* as much as supportive team managers do.”
So the real issue then isn’t visibility of ‘out queer women,’ but how open we are collectively, as a society and that’s not something that effects queer women in isolation, nor is it something increasing the visibility of out queer women will achieve in isolation.
To borrow the words of ex-Australian Chief of Army, David Morrison, “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept,” As representatives, leaders and advocates of your respective professions, which we all are and/or have the capacity to be, we have a responsibility to be custodians of culture — not captives.
I concluded with a call to action for everyone in attendance- my learned colleagues, Her Honour, the attendees and future leaders. Women are here, and some of us are queer. We need to focus our attention on who isn’t, why they aren’t and what we’re doing about it.
My team mates echoed this sentiment and spoke to the progress we have made as a community and the capacity women have to create their won workplace (with reference to Women’s Rugby League and how they’ve changed the game).
Our opponents also referenced the National Profile of Solicitors and highlighted that a large number of women seem to be leaving private practice and/or the legal profession entirely and how much work we have yet to do to achieve gender parity insofar as equitable briefing, senior roles in firms and salaries.
There was no opportunity to provide a rebuttal, but here is mine: Sure there are senior partner or partner roles at firms, but do you know most of innovators or innovative practices are run or developed by women? Women may not be partners in the traditional (dare I say archaic) model of law firms, but they are far from invisible. They are the innovators, the legal-tech start-ups, the flexible and remote workers, the trail-blazers, the game changers.
I’m sure if we had the chance to make the point, we would’ve won the debate. Alas, what I can only assume was an effort to keep all the lawyers and barristers on side, no winner was selected, but in a sense — we all won. We started a discussion that night which sparked several LinkedIn posts the next day and this post a week later. It was indeed a celebration of how far we’ve come and a reminder to keep going — and we will.
This content was originally created for the Queensland Law Society on their blog, Law Talk.