Except it wasn’t. At least not according to her. She believes that the quality of a woman’s work is judge similarly to a man’s. She conceded to the fact that there are those males who still believe women are incapable of performing as well as a man, but those are few and far between. There were no staggering challenges she had to overcome in her career. Nothing short of the usual necessity to work hard. She even said she believes women are perceived to be better lawyers than men. Their maternal instincts and natural compassion make the clients feel more at ease and capable of giving their trust. About two other lawyers gave me similar opinions. They told me they, not Malawian culture itself, but they believe women could make better attorneys as well because women may not act as antagonistically as men. Because females are inherently more honest and decent. Sometimes, they told me, this aggressive behavior from men could be perceived as unethical. For example, a man representing clients on their spare time is seen as questionable when they work for a corporation. Females would not take such risks. Instead of stepping on any toes, women would be more likely to follow all rules strictly and just do her job. Therefore, women are lawyers whom clients are able to trust more freely.

Okay. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. The pivotal point of this argument is women are inherently different, regardless of whether it makes them better attorneys or not. Elevating the capabilities of women to make them better in this field could mean denying them the ability needed to perform other jobs. Would a woman’s maternal or compassionate nature make her a less capable solider under this argument? Does this precedent of women not taking risks take away from their innovation and creativity? Who knows.

What I do know is regardless of who I talk to: male lawyers, female lawyers, hiring personnel, the dean of the law school. There is a distinct separation of what men as lawyers are capable of and what women as lawyers are capable of. I’m still trying to get the statistical data on the profession itself and the law school. My mentor said we need to fight for the data. Let’s see how I do in this next round.

You see, no one has really asked for this type of information before. There isn’t an established precedence of transparency in which this information is available to the public. So they just see this American girl asking questions and trying to get statistics that no one has really tried to compile before. It looks suspicious to them. My mentor/guide here told me if I start asking for this data, the higher ups will start questioning me where I got permission to ask for this info in Malawi. What am I going to do with it? How is it going to be used? Is it going to be published somewhere? Regardless of my answers, the guard of those with access to this information could go up and I may not get the basic information I need like enrollment rates. I could potentially be turned away and denied the help I need. It would not be a problem to pay someone for their extended services, but I don’t want to risk not gaining any sort of information at all if word started circulating about me.

My guide says that we have to try to garner the help of these people slowly. We can’t barge in and ask for data that is not readily available. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to creep into this process. So, my next goal is to try to find any previous research that has this information. Perhaps someone else did have the time to slowly gain the info and I’m just missing it. We will see.

Law School: Chancellors College

Rumor has it there are three sides to every issue. There’s your side, my side, and the truth. Well this couldn’t be more apparent after conducting more than a few of my interviews over the past week. As you know, my objective for this trip is to see if there are any gender inequities within the Malawi system of law; this includes admittance into the law school, hiring in governmental positions, private firms, and corporations. I’ve interviewed law students from years 1-4, practicing lawyers both male and female, the Dean of the law school in Malawi at Chancellors College, and those individuals who hire aspiring attorneys at law firms. Every person I interviewed admitted there is an imbalance when it comes to the ratio of male/female students/lawyers. This rough estimate has ranged from 8:2 to 5:1 to 6:4 to 9:1 with the males dominating at all levels. The current year 1 class boasts 4 girls out of about 46 students. The other recent cohorts seem to all have relatively low numbers of female students as well.

So why is this happening? Why were there such a low number of female students when law started blooming as a prestigious career choice in the 90s and why does this continue to be the case?

 I received similar answers as to why females were not applying to law school at first. Law was considered to be a man’s job, females lacked the assertive nature necessary to succeed, law was risky business to become involved in during the Banda (aka somewhat of a dictator) era, making it even less of a priority for females to get mixed up in. Perceptions of women as not as well read, confident, and low expectations forged a barrier between females and law. Reasons for why the number of female law students remains low are where my interviewees diverge. For example, I ask each respondent if female law students are encouraged to apply to law school. Every male said of course, especially nowadays. The Dean was adamant in his opinion that the application which includes the statement: women are encouraged, is a demonstration of the University’s attempt to recruit female students. There are around 5 female law students that agree with this assessment. On the flip side, other female law students strongly believe women are not encouraged, resulting in the low cohort number.

Is this because there are not as many female applicants as male applicants? Not according to some. They say there is equal number of applicants of both genders applying, but women do not pass the interview stage. Interesting. They cannot tell me why women are not passing these interviews. What is even more interesting is a majority of the respondents believe the application process itself is fair. Trying to decipher the truth out of all these different sides may be a challenge. It also doesn’t help when I don’t know if my respondent really believes what they are saying or just aren’t as forthright as some of the others.

No one answer to my question of why these inequities continue seems to dominate during these interviews. It’s kind of a game of guesswork or fill in the blanks. Right now I am trying to fill in the blank of why women just aren’t getting accepted into the law program despite the increase in female applicants. Is it because they don’t qualify? If so, why are they not fitting these qualifications? I’ll keep you all updated while I investigate some more.

So after waiting patiently for six years, they got fed up and here we are. The strike has been on for over a week now, delaying cases that were already backlogged and preventing lawyers from trying their cases (which is especially harmful to private law firms). Most of the attorneys I’ve talked to support the staff and are just frustrated by the government’s slow response to the issue. You know something’s wrong when all court case proceedings on all levels come to a complete stop. Like one of the lawyer’s I interviewed stated: Justice delayed is justice denied.

In the restaurant I eat at everyday in Zomba. Wish I had this when I worked at McDonalds

In the daytime, you get to connect with your planemate while their awake. In my case I met a 6’5’’ Swedish girl named Helena who was also going to southern Malawi to try to reconstruct more efficient tools for the people in a village to improve the time constraints on their work. She inspired me and reconfirmed my belief that realistic goals are feasible with the right person and right amount of passion. I hope I am the woman for the job I would like to accomplish. I think she liked me too, even though she thought I was a bit strange because I asked her what my accent sounds like.

Anyways, what I like most about riding a plane, regardless of the time, is that I always feel larger than life. The mini pictures below are where people live, with all their mini stories plotted with mini problems which seem so small to me up there but I know really impacts their lives. I knew that in a couple of hours I would land in order to study a problem that I know affects the lives of women in Malawi. Once I did land, issues of equality in the field of law became real and all my foregoing thoughts about mini problems ceased. In the short time I’ve spent here, I was able to speak with one individual about how one goes about becoming a lawyer in this country. Apparently, any student who wishes to become an attorney must go through their first year in college doing whatever they wish, but many aspiring lawyers choose to take classes in humanities because it will help hone the skills necessary to pass the exam to enter law school. This one year is similar to the undergraduate system in America, but it is for one year instead of four. After this year, a student may decide to go to law school for four years and must pass an exam to do so. For the most part, the exam consists of written/oral/comprehensive parts. The comprehensive portion consists of an interview where the student is asked questions about a case and how they would act if they were representing that case. In some years there may not be enough time to conduct the entire examination process so they only give written exams. Once people do become lawyers, most work for a firm for a relatively short amount of time before opening their own. They, according to this individual, like to be their own bosses because opportunities for promotion and more money are not very likely if they stay under the employment of someone else’s firm. Instead of becoming a partner like in the U.S., the prudent thing to do is to open up a firm. More men than women tend to do this. I will try to learn why through interviews with female and male lawyers next week.

This individual I spoke to, who is one of the best on the ground researches in Malawi, also says lawyers are a somewhat recent phenomenon in the country. The first President of Malawi did not provided an environment conducive to this particular profession. Some would call him a dictator. Issues would be suppressed in other ways that rarely included arguments in court.

As I learn more I will keep you all up to score. We are learning this together. Oh, and what I heard was true. The people in this country are as beautiful as well as friendly as I was told.