Justice is a philosophical and moral ideal that aims to ensure fairness and parity, and yet sexism is very present in the professions that represent it. In 2016, the blog "Paye ta Robe", in reference to "Paye ta Schnek" which lists experiences of street harassment, was launched:female lawyers reported the daily humiliations suffered by their male colleagues who were visibly more interested in their physique than by their professionalism or who did not hesitate to let them know that they were not up to exercising a "men's job". A recent very telling study confirms that the courts are indeed the scene of sexist preconceptions. Carried out by the University of Arizona, in the United States, research focused on "the different impact of male and female lawyers who express anger in the courtroom" suggests that a professional who outweighs during his argument is considered "hysterical" while a man who acts similarly is seen as "powerful". To arrive at these conclusions, a mock trial was created with 3 (fake) female lawyers and 3 (fake) lawyers speaking out in the case of a murder and using the specific emotion of anger. Participants who witnessed the successive scenes then had to rate the persuasiveness of the animated speeches of the 6 actors.
We give you the result in thousand:the male AND female witnesses described the lawyers as "powerful, "authoritarian", "competent" and "convincing" while the female lawyers were considered "hysterical", "annoying" and " ineffective”. Jessica Salerno, a psychologist who teaches at the University of Arizona and who conducted the study, deciphers the phenomenon:"A good lawyer is expected to show in the courtroom qualities traditionally associated with men as anger, aggression and power. Men are applauded for this, but women are penalized for showing these same character traits […] We asked participants to rate the degree of anger expressed by the actors; they found that women and men were on the same level. But unfortunately, we reproduce behaviors already highlighted in other studies:the men are the ones we found convincing and the witnesses specified that they would have hired them without problem. It's the opposite for women ". If that is not injustice in its purest form... Such observations are far from trivial since, as the psychologist mentions, they reflect the difficulties that women lawyers can encounter throughout their their career especially when it comes to convincing jurors. Well, times are changing but not fast enough... As revolting as it is despairing!
