There is no shortage of applications to Harvard Law School and we are humbled to be here. The admissions office has thousands of applications to choose from each year when assembling a class. Make no mistake: among the women at Harvard Law School, we are not atypical. The women admitted to Harvard Law School are just as capable and impressive as any of our classmates.

But something happens once we get here. Last year, only nine women were selected for the Harvard Law Review out of 44 total editors and only 18 out of the 60 students who graduated magna cum laude were women. The differences are significant because these credentials are passports to positions of leadership and power upon leaving law school.

In an April 5 piece, Mr. Taranto assumes, without any evidence, that it is something innate in Harvard Law’s women — their lack of equal talent and intelligence — which causes these disparities at Harvard. That this was Mr. Taranto’s instinctive explanation, and that he embraces it uncritically and without any empirical support, is alarming. In the process, he suggests Harvard Law School women are whiny and undeserving.

The Harvard Women’s Law Association has chosen to respond to these eye-opening, but unfortunately not aberrational outcomes rather differently. Instead of unthinkingly justifying these disparities through antiquated notions of inherent female inferiority, as Mr. Taranto seems to, we must explore whether there is something about Harvard Law School as an institution that causes these disparities, and what exactly we can do about it. With these goals in mind, and with the support of hundreds of HLS students and many student groups, the WLA supported the launch of an initiative called Shatter the Ceiling to learn about the disparity in grades and achievement at HLS not only between men and women, but also among other underrepresented groups.

The coalition’s plan includes: first, pressuring the administration to release the data that it already has on men and women’s achievement, both upon entering law school and throughout their time at Harvard; secondly, using the tremendous academic resources at Harvard’s disposal to gather the right data to allow us to understand what is really going on and how best to address it; and third, developing changes that address the root causes of these disparities. The Socratic method was developed at Harvard Law School in the Julia Grant era. We want to develop law school education for the Michelle Obama age.

Shatter the Ceiling struck a chord. Almost three hundred students — men and women —  and several professors came to the launch of the Shatter the Ceiling campaign.  We all want to see HLS do better by its students. Less than a year after a presidential race between two Harvard Law graduates, we know the significance of ensuring that women and other traditionally disenfranchised groups have an equal shot at success.  

The problem of gender disparities at law school is not new. And it is not confined to Harvard. Yale’s corresponding women’s organization, Yale Law Women, released a definitive ten year study that echoed and supported some of the same basic concerns last year (http://www.law.yale.edu/stuorgs/speakup.htm).

Gender-based disparities in academic accolades at top-tier law schools have implications that reach far beyond Cambridge or New Haven. Top law schools channel immense amounts of privilege and power. Harvard is overrepresented on the federal bench, in boardrooms, and in Congress. As long as that continues to be a reality, then everyone concerned about diverse leadership (especially in the wake of 2012’s election season) should care about gender equality in this country’s “pipeline” institutions.

We know that at the outset Harvard Law School has tremendous faith in the men and women it selects to join its ranks each year. We truly believe Harvard Law School is the best place for a woman to launch her legal career – but it can do better by its women still. We’re here to help and we’re up to the challenge.

Stephanie Davidson, HLS ‘13

Outgoing President, Harvard Women’s Law Association

Nitzan Weizmann, HLS ‘14

Incoming President, Harvard Women’s Law Association

Julie Brinn Siegel, HLS ‘15

Incoming Vice-President, Harvard Women’s Law Association

Unfortunately, the Shatter film is too large to be hosted on the HLS org server. You can view it here:

Shatter the Ceiling Short Film

The Solidarity Letter:

On the evening of Feb. 20th, Dean Martha Minow moderated a discussion between Professors

Janet Halley and Laura Rosenbury about the current relevance of feminist legal theories in front
of a packed room of about 100 students.

The professors discussed the ways that feminist legal theories have evolved and the roles they
have played in shaping the experience of men and women in both the classroom and in legal
practice. The conversation veered from ruminations on whether the law, which depends on
categories, and queer theory, which fundamentally opposes them, could ever be reconciled to
critiques of whether labeling certain viewpoints as explicitly feminist could do more harm than
good.

Students enjoyed a lively discussion that included examples of how far the culture at the law
school has come. In one telling example, Professor Rosenbury’s described her experience
protesting in front of the Harvard Law Review house 20 years ago as an undergraduate student
after the HLR published a parody of a piece written by feminist legal scholar Mary Joe Frug on
the one year anniversary of her death. Just a few years later, Professor Rosenbury recalled, she
was sitting in that house herself as an editor on the HLR.

The professors also threw out zingers that drew big laughs, including Professor Halley’s
observation that rancor within critical legal studies could have positive repercussions. “Schism is
always an option,” she noted. “That’s why we have Protestantism.”

Thanks to our co-sponsors, JLG, ACS and Lambda for helping spread the word and get people
excited about such an illuminating event!

1. The People

People in law school are always talking about networking, usually in the context of business cards and cocktail parties.  Academic conferences provide a fantastic, non-corporate opportunity to get to know both established and aspiring figures in the fields that matter to you.  Whether you have a rousing conversation over lunch, stop by after a panel to ask questions and offer suggestions, or just take note of names you may want to get in touch with weeks (or years) down the line, you’ll be building relationships that can only help your academic career.

 2. The Academic Experience

Law school, for better or worse, is in large part about research and writing.  Understanding how to frame and develop a research project, to write cogently about a problem you are still in the process of answering, and to distill those thoughts into a short presentation for peer review and support are key skills for any legal career.  It’s also important to start taking the initiative in creating and promoting your research, as well as to train yourself to be on the lookout for new scholarship and scholarly opportunities.  Better yet, that sort of training—learning to find peers, mentors, and opportunities for academic conversation—can be developed even if you merely attend a conference and are not yet ready to present yourself.

3. Confidence

In an age where women remain underrepresented in politics, law firms, legal scholarship, and even in classroom participation, it’s critical that women at HLS learn to stand up and speak out – a lesson made exponentially easier when that speech is applauded and encouraged.  I was amazed by the number of people, both presenters and audience members, who came up to me after speaking to tell me how much they liked my presentation, to propose ways I could deepen or augment my analysis, and/or to ask if they could consider my paper’s ideas or insights in their work.  While academic conferences may sound formal and intimidating, they can actually offer a critical ego boost, as people you respect and admire not only take the time to listen to your ideas, but come to gain insights from you and to help make your work as strong as possible so that you can succeed.

4. Something Different

Unfortunately, law school classes can get a little dry, as you try to take in all the requisite black letter law and traditional coursework.  Academic conferences, by contrast, are all about scholarly innovation and diversification, finding new areas of study, new implications, and new voices.  Attending a conference can be a wonderful way of combatting burnout and of discovering more avenues to get you excited about legal scholarship.

5. The Comparative Costs and Benefits

It’s surprisingly easy to become involved in, and present at, a conference.  In essence, all you need is:

a) the initiative to root around the internet and scout out conferences of interest to you,
b) an idea or problem that interests you, and for which you can write a short (read: one page) proposal, and
c) the time and energy to research and write a short paper on the subject, which can often be done in conjunction with a class or academic credit.

In exchange, you’ll get:

a) a network of possible mentors and collaborators,
b) experience developing, crafting, and presenting original work,
c) invaluable support and feedback, and
d) a chance to do and consider something different from traditional law school classes, not to mention
e) a great resume addition and talking point.

So what are you waiting for?

Thanks to the WLA, I got to start my reading week talking about Fifty Shades of Grey instead of the Federal Rules of Evidence.

As an ex-English major with a focus in women’s fiction, I had avidly followed the rather troubling discussions about “mommy porn” and women’s “secret, antifeminist desires” taking place throughout mainstream media following the publication of E.L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey.  While rifling through one such critique, my eyes were caught by a lengthy discussion of something that seemed far more appropriate to my 1L classes than to a work of erotica: contracts.

Namely, it seemed that E.L. James’s characters spent a large part of the novel drafting, negotiating, and revising a BDSM contract, which set out acceptable types of sexual play and limits to the relationship and even reprinted in full for the reader the exact sets of terms at issue.  As the characters themselves acknowledged, such a sexual contract would never be enforced in a court of law.  That knowledge, however, did not stop either the characters or James from turning again and again to the contract’s terms and forms, insisting it be treated with full legal formality, or from treating it as essential to their sexual and romantic relationship.

What followed were weeks of procrastination on Westlaw and daydreaming through contracts class, as I tried to determine just what these BDSM contracts constituted, who was using them, and why on earth a writer of erotica would repeatedly choose to stop talking about sex and start talking about the (honestly, less-than-sexy) subject of contract formation.  During the course of this procrastination, I happened across a call for proposals for a (Un)Safe, a graduate student conference at the University of Pennsylvania on notions of safety in relation to sex and gender.  Realizing that my research had focused largely on whether BDSM contracts served to make sex more conventional or more dangerous, I quickly jumbled together some of my thoughts and questions about BDSM contracts and sent them off.  Several weeks later, I was thrilled to hear that my proposal had been accepted and that I would be able to join a dozen other academics in conversations about gendered conceptions of safety.

Thus it was that I found myself spending reading week in Philadelphia, listening to speakers talk about women’s rights, queer aesthetics, and gender recognition.  The two-day conference took its interdisciplinary title seriously, featuring speakers from fields as diverse as law, public health, early modern literature, and contemporary film studies.  Whether in discussing the rhetoric of safe sex and women’s choice, the questions posed by female boxers and female virtuosity, or the intersection of genre and female identity in post-nuclear fiction, every speaker returned again and again to the ways in which gender and sexuality shape our construction of identity, safety, and normalcy.  The interdisciplinary nature of the conference also highlighted the ways in which genres and fields themselves are indisputably subject to gendering: one could easily perceive the differing extents to which issues of feminism, gender, and queerness were or were not commonplace within various departments.

An unquestionable highlight of the conference was the presence and participation of the keynote speaker, Lauren Berlant.  Berlant, the George M. Pullman Professor of English at the University of Chicago and a pioneer in the study of affect and collective attachment, not only delivered a fascinating keynote on “Structures of Unfeeling: Mysterious Skin” (entirely while standing in a yoga tree pose, no less), but listened diligently to the student presentations and offered insights and advice to help each student further develop her piece.  I was particularly gratified when she came up to me after my presentation to congratulate me on my delivery and to offer to provide syllabi and notes that might be of future help to my research.

Above all, the conference provided a unique opportunity to take part in stimulating and diverse conversations about the ways in which gender shapes our everyday lives—indeed our very conception of “the everyday”—and I look forward to continuing those conversations with both the conference’s presenters and with the WLA and students here at HLS

Thanks to the boundless energy and dedication of the WLA Mentoring Chair, Nicole Kardassakis, some fantastic 1L women took a J-term break and tested out Davis Square’s Bowl Haven! Below are some snapshots of the fun:

Packed room at the 7th Annual Conference

<End Live Tweets>
“Join me. The cause is ours.” #19percent #wlaconference @WLAHarvard

@Schriock1 Thank you for everything! We’ll never forget the thrill of learning from you today! #womensupportingwomen #19percent

RT @WLAHarvard @Schriock1 ”As you make your way reach behind u & grab your sister to make sure she comes too-We must move forward together”

And everyone: stay safe in #nemo!

ENORMOUS thank you to everyone who attended & to all our speakers,@AlisonOmens @Schriock1 @mlkrook @brandihoffine @wutrain@FawziaKoofi77

Koofi: #Elections aren’t about how good you are..it’s about support. If we fail in 2014 election, then we fail.

Koofi: People are fed up with the leaders leading with violence and guns; I have all the social networks behind me.

Koofi: Afghanistan is not a poor country, and it’s an important country geographically

Koofi: second is drug trafficking, third is lack of good government and rule of law; these two elements must be reformed internally

Koofi: three challenges that afghanistan faces; first: insecurity

Koofi: with social media, the world will not be uninformed about what is going on in Afghanistan anymore

Impassioned remarks by @FawziaKoofi77 pic.twitter.com/JzVLhvuH

Koofi: The second priority is #democracy

Koofi: “#Women have come a long way.”

Koofi: “Women’s issue, women’s rights, should be the priority.”

Koofi: “It’s important for all of us to understand that the war in Afghanistan is not just an Afghan war.”

“#Peace is a value. Nobody can oppose it.”

Koofi: every sector was invested in, without priority. together with corruption, this reduced the hope and enthusiasm that people had felt

Koofi: “We wanted to do everything, and huge expectations were raised without managing the expectation.”

Koofi: you could see “hope and enthusiasm in the eyes” of the Afghan people

Koofi: describes a “back to school” campaign for girls after the Taliban fell

Koofi: Article 22 of the Afghan constitution bans discrimination, which is really important for women

Koofi: “We have paid a high price for the words of ‘freedom’ and ‘sovereignty.’”

Koofi: could finally live without the fear of being beaten for not swearing socks, a burka, and other required clothing for women

Koofi: only after 9/11 did the Taliban regime fall apart

Koofi: “As a Muslim woman, I don’t see any space for that [cutting off hands as punishment for theft] in Islam.”

Koofi: recalls a man trying to beat her with a stone because she had nail polish on

@Schriock1: Thank you @WLAHarvard! You are great women and great supportive men standing together to make #19percent 50 and more.

Retweeted by @WLAHarvard

Koofi: what she faced as a woman gave her the “determination and the passion” to enter politics

Koofi: recalls her husband being put in jail for no reason other than marrying her, since she was from a political family

Koofi: had to stop her education because of the Taliban taking power

Koofi: originally wanted to be a doctor, to “cure the injuries of my nation”

Koofi: “I come from a family that basically paid a high price for being in politics.”

Koofi: we need to take time to reflect on our mistakes, so we can make change in the future

“Join me. The cause is ours.” – Fawzia Koofi

Closing remarks from @FawziaKoofi77, retaking the stage

Our final panel is done! Now, closing remarks from Fawzia Koofi #19percent#WLAConference

Fried: complete disenfranchisement of felons is not very common, as widely believed

Fried: “At the bare minimum, people who have felony convictions should know what their rights are.”

Clarke: another problem is that those who can vote from prison don’t get their votes counted for their own state, but where the prison is

Second question from WLA VP Nitzan Weizmann: How do laws not allowing felons to vote affect our conversation?

Gill: “Money is needed from the federal government, absolutely,” but agrees there needs to be flexibility for states

Gill: Role for federal government: implement minimum set of standards.

Clarke: thinks it has to continue to be more of a state-by-state movement

Clarke: “There just isn’t enough money. There’s not enough training.” -on problems of the election in PA

Clarke: money should be put into election administration #WLAConference

Time for questions! Question 1 from Lena Silver: Is putting the answer of federal voting in federal hands a possible solution?

Omens: as the electorate expands, our conversations will continue to change #WLAConference #19percent

Omens: the electorate expanded and changed in 2008 so much, and people did not think it would continue in 2012

Omens: used social media to get people the right information and get it to them wherever they are

Omens: AFL-CIO used social media (facebook, twitter) to reach people during the election, encouraging people to stay on line

Clarke: the voter id laws ended up backfiring by getting people really involved in collectively fighting back against them

Clarke: “There was so much anger at this obvious effort to take voter’s rights away.”

Clarke: “This is part of who we are. This is part of what makes me a person. This is part of what makes me a citizen.” #voting #19percent

Clarke: PA constitution “enshrines the right to vote,” unlike the US constitution

Gill: “Why don’t all states use online registrations?”

Gill: we need portable voter registration, so that when people move their registration follows them. but many states don’t have this option

@Schriock1 Thank you SO much for coming and being such a fantastic keynote — hope you can get back safely and quickly.

Gill: one way to ensure there is no disenfranchisement is planning ahead of time, training poll workers, etc

Gill: Lawyers’ Committee brought suit against Ohio in 2004 on disenfranchisement grounds, and that has brought about real change today

Gill: “I think we are getting to a place where we can actually have some real reform, at the federal and state level.”

Gill: section 5 has helped to block voter ID laws in this past election

Gill: for states with history of voting discrimination, they must pre-clear voting law changes; section 5 continues to be relevant today

Fried: To have every governor talking about this is “mindblowing,” the public is demanding something better. We might get to that better way

Fried: Nationally, there is real momentum; talking seriously about playing offense, passing laws that are better, make it easier to vote

A reason to be hopeful moving forward? Fried: 2008 #Obama campaign revolutionized #voterprotection - now you can’t ignore that it’s an issue

Fried: what we can take away from this is that we need to be creative; “there is a lot of room for innovation”

in-office absentee voting: go to your voting office, request an absentee ballot in person, fill it out right there, and return it same day

Fried: her team came up with an idea of in-office absentee voting, which had never been done before

Fried: The concern was “How are we going to make people feel like the right to vote is not lost?” when talking about the voting laws

Fried: Florida has specific voter access problems, and wanted to make sure to talk about voting “without absolutely terrifying the voters”

Hannah Fried, Florida Voter Protection Coordinator for the Obama Campaign now speaking #19percent

Omens: “We really need to educate people and have these conversations . . . about what is really at stake here.”

Omens: pro-voter ID law language is about preventing people from cheating the system, but the real issue is restricting the rights to vote

Alison Omens, Director of Media Outreach at AFL-CIO speaking now

Women as a group are most impacted by #voterID laws – maiden name IDs won’t work if they’re gotten married. #19percent

Very little effort to educate voters in these states on new #voterID laws. Early voting cuts. pic.twitter.com/sa11yBzK

Gill: limitations on absentee voting, limited opportunities to register to vote. PA laws disproportionately impact minorities, elderly.

Can you tell us something you grappled with leading up to the election?

Jennifer Clarke, Hannah Fried, Sonia Gill, and Cynthia Bauerly are our panelists now #19percent pic.twitter.com/vl7Jgxsv

Our final panel of the day is beginning: Voter Disenfranchisement: Whose Voices are Represented? #19percent

Schriock: Pathways: business women do very well and law women are more inclined to run, but it’s imperative to find women in ALL areas!

So excited and grateful to pull such a HUGE crowd despite the snow!#19percent @emilyslist @Schriock1 pic.twitter.com/LKPEG0fN

View on Twitter

Schriock on building diverse coalition: look to political and non-political organizations to recruit candidates. #19Percent

Q: Why only Democratic women? A: We’re pro-choice; policies matter. We’re most successful in this lane. But need more of ALL women in power!

Wonderful keynote address by @Schriock1 – taking Qs from audience nowpic.twitter.com/TYvAn4DF

Schriock: As you make your way up, reach behind you and grab your sister to make sure she comes, too. We must strive move forward together.

Schriock: Nobody gave women the chance to make a difference. They banded together and went out and found it. It takes courage! Don’t wait!

Schriock: 55% of men who self-identify as unqualified to run for office, do. Women need to be asked 7 times to run. THIS IS YOUR FIRST ASK.

Schriock: “It rests on our shoulders to bring other women to the table”#19percent #WLAConference

Schriock: Place for ALL interests in politics. You CAN do this. You MUST. Democracy depends on us. ALL of you need to join me.

Schriock: Emily’s List recruits and trains Democratic women to run for office.#wlaconference

Schriock: “We need women and girls in this country to feel like they can take risks.” #19percent #wlaconference

Schriock: Loss is not end of the world, just the end of the race. Girls and women need to take bigger risks. Emily’s List ready to train!

Schriock: no better advancement of women’s leadership than Title IX, opened so many doors, and very existence is thanks to women–Patsy Mink

Schirock: It took laws to open up opportunities for women. #19percent

Schriock: 98 women in Congress today. We have earned our seat at the table many times over, it’s our time to take our place at the head.

Schriock: quotes Obama–there is a reason he started with Seneca Falls, was just the beginning

Schriock: many people in Congress have the wrong priorities, so we need to send new people, new women to Washington, we play offense!

Schriock: women working in news worked so hard for little credit, men wrote vast majority of all cover stories, held few leadership position

Schriock: in 1986 there was no women’s bathroom in the Senate!

Stephanie Schriock, President of Emily’s List, speaking now in Milstein East as the WLA Conference Keynote Speaker #19percent

Chen: Romney would have been a great President

Chen: she had a feeling Romney was going to be running for President in 2008, and wanted to meet him

Chen: told her boyfriend that no matter what it cost, even though they didn’t have much money, they had to win that dinner.

Chen: at a public interest auction through HBS, Josh Romney auctioned off dinner with his dad (Mitt)

Chen: her boyfriend at the time, now husband, was at HBS and his classmate was Romney’s son Josh

Chen: first time she met Mitt Romney she was at HLS and Romney was governor

Chen: “Politics at the end of the day is really about people and how they interact with one another . . . .”

Chen: Romney campaign had women leading some of the most important divisions in the campaign, and major roles in strategy and advertisements

Chen: Romney “made a real serious effort to put women in the cabinet” when he became governor

Chen: “The sentiment behind it . . . was real.”

Chen: was in the rapid response room with Romney’s binder comment was made

Rosenfeld: was there an instance you had to reach out to women in particular?

Rosenfeld’s next question: what are some of your favorite or pivotal moments in the campaign?

Hoffine: it was satisfying to watch a man running for senate “admit I don’t know how this policy works”

Hoffine: when the personhood law came up the two male candidates were asked by a male moderator how contraception and IUDs work

Hoffine: Kaine said that when women make up 50% of the economy, we all have to pay attention to these issues

Hoffine: “A male candidate can very effectively deliver this message” when it’s framed as “family and economic issues” @timkaine

Hoffine: “The second question was about Virginia’s ultrasound law” at an all-male business forum, which brought them to a new realization

Hoffine: the men became defensive over these issues on behalf of their wives, daughters

Hoffine: “We stopped talking about them as women’s issues” which helped bring in male voters @timkaine #19percent

freedom, gender equity (equal pay), etc. Men cared about these issues too.

Hoffine: 19 months of exhaustive research ended up with a conclusion that the issues that moved these people were issues of reproductive

Hoffine: gender and women’s issues were one of the most significant factors in Tim Kaine’s campaign

Hoffine: did not work for a woman candidate this cycle, but agrees with Wu’s comments about women candidates

Chen: outreach to women and outreach to men should be the same, since we all care about the same issues

Chen: “Women care about jobs, about the economy”

Chen: the problem is that these comments are linked to other republicans, like Romney

Chen: “He said a really idiotic thing that nobody should say” (re: Aiken’s “real rape” comments)

Chen: commenting how the republican party tried to get Aiken to withdraw after his legitimate rape comments

Chen: noting that Santorum wrote a book that criticized women who work for abandoning their families

Chen: it’s not true, factually, that republicans want to ban birth control or prevent women from working

Chen: “As a republican, I gristle at the notion that there are women’s issues separate from other issues that we should all care about.”

Wu: reaching out to local media in addition to mainstream papers helped Warren’s @elizabethforma #WLAConference #19percent

Wu: the reporters were men and brought a male or gendered bend to the Liz Warren campaign

Wu: “You need to look beyond Scott Brown’s truck and his masculine image” to see what the candidates really had to offer

Wu: worried that women politicans will always be forced to jump through extra hurdles to legitimize themselves

View on Twitter

Wu: from day 1, wondering if the Warren campaign could come over the shadow of the Coakley campaign. @elizabethforma

Rosenfeld: What kinds of lessons have you learned on the trail?

Wu: inspirational experience on the Warren campaign @elizabethforma#WLAConference #19percent

Wu: each card actually reflected the issues of the local community reflected by the language

Wu: proudest of the fact that on the Warren campaign they had information cards in at least 10 different languages

Wu: jumped on Warren’s campaign the first moment she could, eventually moving to a role on engaging communities of color

Wu: her second experience was in Contracts with Elizabeth Warren#19percent

Wu: this made her interested in how city government runs and affects people’s everyday lives and bigger dreams

Wu: had to move back to Chicago to take care of her mom and opened a small restaurant, which was her first experience with city government

Wu: two instances drove me into politics

Wu: noting her surprise that her mother signed her up for this class, but realizes her mother saw the barriers in integrating

Wu: “When I was 5 years old my mom had saved up to sign me up for an etiquette class.” Wu “had never had a dinner with no chopsticks before”

Wu: comes from an immigrant family, and felt she was part of two worlds growing up

Michelle Wu is now introducing herself, reminiscing about her previous experiences in the audience at the #WLAHarvard conference

Don’t miss our panel on blazing the political trail, happening now in Milstein East! #19percent #WLAHarvard

Hoffman: quit her job to work for Tim Kaine on the trail when he decided to run for office

Hoffman: used to be responsible for watching every single McCain/Palin appearance and do rapid response. She can quote their stump speeches!

Hoffman: went to work for DNC to do opposition research, which was a male-dominated field

Hoffman: “I was itching to get back into politics.”

Brandi Hoffman is now speaking about her early experiences, including volunteering with local political campaigns in high school and college

I’ll be switching over to last names, so replace all the Katie’s with “Chen”!

Katie is telling us about how gender affected the work she’s done; she says it hasn’t affected her work at all #WLAHarvard

Katie joined Bush/Cheney campaign as associate counsel upon graduating from HLS #WLAConference

Katie took a semester off of college to work for a senate campaign#19percent

Katie was always eager to get into politics, and reminisces about her first job picking up phones on the Dole campaign

And Brandi Hoffine was the Communications Director for Senator Tim Kaine’s campaign

Michelle Wu just graduated from HLS (JD ’12) and is running for Boston City Council

Short bios for you. Katie Biber Chen was the General Counsel of Romney 2012 Campaign

Moderator for today’s panel is HLS Professor Diane Rosenfeld

Panel starting now, so run in and grab a seat near the front!

Coming up on the next panel “Tips from the Trail: Gender in Political Campaigns” have Katie Biber Chen, Michelle Wu, and Brandi Hoffine

@brandihoffine Excited to have you!

Thanks for joining us for our first panel, huge thank you to @mlkrook,@FawziaKoofi77, Cathy Allen, and Mindy Roseman. #19percent

Krook: No, why should we be forced to vote for MEN. I want to have a choice.

Krook: men majority of voters, but women are majority of population in many countries. Why should voters be forced to vote for woman, right?

Krook: Yes, we have fewer years of political exp; no wonder – women have been excluded. Work twice as much to be considered half as good

Krook: women are equally or better qualified than the men; the men haven’t completed high school, women have the advanced degrees

@thetiniestbird We’re rooting for you to get here!

Allen: it’s not #education or that they’re not ready. It’s a woman’s lack of self confidence that takes her out of the loop. “Yes, you can!”

Koofi: #political obligation, universal value for government to find the right people. #19percent

Koofi: put criteria right in the law. Easy to find corrupt men, but noncorrupt women, difficult? Mobilize support for right people

Koofi: how to get right people in right positions. Education, right connections. Some men come in without being able to read & write.

Audience Q: how do we respond to democratic ideal, with most voters being men?

Audience Q: To what extent do we have to first break down traditional gender roles? How do we go about doing that?

Allen: “I’ve gotta say…we’re ready.” #19percent

Allen: proof in the pudding – if you want to ignore quotas, it’s at your peril. This generation won’t tolerate women not being at the table.

.@mlkrook: “I just joined #twitter last week!” We know!

Women are qualified but need to be inspired to run for office. @mlkrook

Krook: We’re not stuck with what we have! Arrangements can be different. But waiting gets us nowhere. #19percent

Koofi: Universal values should be pushed more. Require us to support each other – basic right to political/social activity #19percent

Koofi: women in West take many issues for granted that are still a struggle in other countries. Even have to fight to have bank accounts

Last question by moderator: what kind of lessons have we learned from international experience? 1-2 talking pts for #American public

Allen: when women/men hear the “stupid things men say” to women, everyone exclaims “what idiot!”

‎”Men promise big things and they don’t deliver them; women promise small things and they deliver. That’s how women are gaining the trust of voters in Afghanistan.” – Fawzia Koofi

When there are #women in #politics, female constituents are more likely to contact their representatives #19percent

Mirror at #Swedish parliament, sign that says “First female prime minister” – could be you

.@mlkrook: Seemingly like at @Harvard_Law, in #Sweden parliament, no portraits of women

Great to have you all here at our 1st panel! @jessb_weiner @dianeew@AlisonOmens #19percent

Quota – “I don’t know of a good one, but I don’t know of a bad one either” – Allen

Allen: “20% is tipping point” – at that point, they start doing things – meaningful #guncontrol, other policy, across party lines

Voters to target to support women: young people, then men, then women. If young people voting, more likely to have women

ALlen: after you meet quota, you reach critical mass, start a process. “I have watched women move into govt who had no idea what govt does”

Allen: #American model is “it’ll happen somehow” – no longer global model of female #political involvement.

Must be quantity participation in order to ensure quality participation later.#quota #elections #women @FawziaKoofi77

They will talk about your clothes, your scarf, how covered your head is.

Women now willing to be agents of change. “But for us, we have to struggle from scratch” #wlaconference

Women missed out on political connections bc they had to stay home; no political support; not taken seriously because they have no weapons

Koofi: to pave way for women, need to have quota. In #Afghanistan, not quota for just political participation, but also gov offices

.@FawziaKoofi77: meaningful participation may not be there, #women there for sake of being women. There are weak women but also weak men too

How do we make sure participation is meaningful? Tokenism? Critical mass? Tipping point? Speak to #s.

Allen: next battle is equal access to capital #19percent

Allen: quota isn’t the panacea we’d like to see, each is different, they’re a little bad but means to an end; get #womens voices @ the table

Cathy Allen, President of The Connections Group: In #Afghanistan, asking for quota for # of women in colleges #education #genderequity

We may not have thousands of people, but the quality of people…#19percent

#Quotas will be the end of life as we know it — that is #alarmist. Analogy to#nemo

Changes in #USA have been much slower than elsewhere #19percent

#SaudiArabia - 20% quota which puts them ahead of #USA. #zimbabwe has 22% House, 50% of Senate. New global norm of #genderbalance

Quotas of elected women? @mlkrook: even countries where there is not a formal quota, there is some kind of soft target #19percent #elections

“If you want something said in #politics ask a man, if you want something done, ask a#woman” – Mona Lena Krook

Koofi: “Men talk about big things and deliver small” #zing #19percent

Koofi: “We have to support a woman because she will get elected anyway”#afghanistan #elections #19percent

Koofi: “Political participation is one of the means to pave the way for women” and reduce gender violence

Fawzia Koofi, Afghan Parliamentarian & Presidential Candidate: new constitution gave women a “new political life”

What countries are leading the way? What level of female participation are we seeing? #19percent

Our 1st panel is Models from Abroad: International Pathways to Women’s Political Participation

Getting started with our first panel, Mindy Roseman moderating #19percent

A huge thank you to #Kirkland&Ellis for making this possible.

Half an hour til showtime! Despite #nemo, we’re going full speed ahead.#19percent #wlaconference

I was going to throw up.  The first day’s reading for my Gender Violence, Law and Social Justice course involved graphic articles about the rape in Steubenville, Ohio.  As I was reading about the horror inflicted on a sixteen-year old girl, my body reacted physiologically.  I felt sick, but also angry.  In light of such an obvious attack on women, why can’t Congress reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act?

Partisan divide explains some of Congress’ incapacity to act (though it still confuses me why women’s safety isn’t a concern of both parties).  The dearth of women in Congress also contributes to legislative inaction on women’s issues.  That’s why I’m so excited for EMILY’s List President Stephanie Schriock to speak at the 7^th Annual Harvard Women’s Law Association (WLA) Conferenceon February 8, 2013.  EMILY’s List encouraged, endorsed, and ensured that women won seats in the House and Senate as well as in state executive and legislative positions.

I’m also excited to hear from Michelle Wu, who graduated from Harvard Law School last year and is now running for an at-large seat in the Boston City Council.  Ms. Wu will be speaking on the “Tips from the Trail: Gender in Political Campaigns” panel at the WLA Conference.  It is inspiring to witness women running for office.  As an Asian-American woman, it is especially meaningful for me to see Ms. Wu contend for a spot in government.

Thanks to EMILY’s List, when women run, they can win.  Women such as Elizabeth Warren and Claire McCaskill have proven to be formidable candidates.  The 2012 election was a watershed moment for women in government.  For the first time in American history, women now constitute 19 percent of Congress.  More women than ever have access to the floor of Congress (if only access to the bathroom could keep up!).  When women command the floor, they can share their perspective.  They can shift the national dialogue around women’s issues.  They can argue to reauthorize VAWA.

I dream that our Congress will one day pass legislation even more protective of women’s rights than VAWA.  This will only happen if that 19 percent grows.  And how will that happen?  You should run.

Annie Lee is a second-year student at Harvard Law School.

I doubt anyone on the debate room floor during the second debate could have predicted the way Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” explanation would take off. Of course, the moment the quote hit the airwaves social media exploded. By the time the tumblr and facebook pages appeared, the appeal of the phrase was clear: it seemed ridiculous that a business man and public servant with a resume like Mr. Romney’s would have had so little interaction with qualified women to require staffers to compile binders.

Post-election, I’ve been thinking about an entirely different set of “binders full of women” – the overflowing intake binders at domestic violence shelters and women’s health clinics across the country.

With the Violence Against Women Act on life support, and women’s health clinics under attack by state legislators, women’s gains in the 2012 election – making up a record-breaking 19% of congress – are as crucial as ever. A government that can let the Violence Against Women Act die is one that clearly minimizes American women’s safety and experiences, as we so often witness in the reproductive health context: who can forget the senate contraception hearing without a single female panelist?

The 7^th Annual Harvard Women’s Law Association Conference, “19%: When Will Women Have The Floor?” could not come at a better time. Congresswomen’s reactions to both the VAWA crisis and the all-male contraception hearing highlight the importance of achieving gender parity in government. The conference will provide an opportunity on February 8^th for female leaders and our community to celebrate and assess our recent victories, and to brainstorm ways to sustain our momentum in the years to come.

We’ve still got 31% to go!

Stephanie Davidson is a third-year student and is the Harvard WLA President.