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8 ALSA F. 147 (1984)
Postscript: On Working with Feminine Energy

handle is hein.journals/lstf8 and id is 155 raw text is: POSTSCRIPT: On Working with Feminine Energy by James R. Elkins In my first years of teaching (I started in 1975), 1 was surprised less by the number of women that were by then in law school, than by the energy, spirit, and hope they brought with them. I attended law school in the late 1960's and early 70's when women in law school were rare. Then, less than five years later, I found women to be the dominant force of energy in the law school. By dominant force I do not mean that they ran the law school, had more than token representation on the faculty, or controlled student government. The female energy I perceived certainly did not come from having what men would call power;1 for they had little; it came from their presence, from feminine spirit. I wondered why these women seemed so much more dynamic and intellectually interesting than their male colleagues. Since writing often helps me understand my own experience of the world, I decided to write something about the phenomena of women in legal education. I assumed that others had observed that women were coming to law school in significantly larger numbers and had speculated on what this might mean for legal education, the practice of law, and perhaps even our conception of law and justice. A review of the legal and social science literature indicated that no such work had been done. When I raised the subject with women students I was told to forget it. They warned that a man was not in a position to write about women and legal education. A historic problem for women, they cautioned, was that men wrote about their experiences for them, defining their experience by speaking for them. Politically, they said, it wouldn't work for a man to write about women. Masculine and feminine differences are a political issue, they pointed out, and a man cannot deal with that in a way that makes any sense to women. A bit baffled and, frankly, hurt, I took their advice and let the matter drop. My courses in administrative law, criminal law, and ALSA Forum Vol. VIII. No. 1 1984

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