33% Women Lawyers Face Gender Bias, 38% See Job As Discouraging: SC Bar Association Survey
New Delhi: A recent Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) survey has found that around 38% of women advocates find the profession discouraging while 33.1% faces gender biases.
The survey, which studied the experiences of women advocates in the profession, shed light on the aspects of leadership opportunities, gender bias, career choices and the effect of marriage and motherhood on work in the law sector.
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The SCBA presented the survey report titled “We Women Empowerment in Law: A Panel Discussion on Strength, Struggle and Success.” The survey gathered data from 301 respondents, of which 84.1 per cent identified themselves as first-generation lawyers while 15.9 percent said they were not.
Notably, 38.5 percent marked the industry as discouraging while only 25 percent saw the professional experience as encouraging. ‘17.6 percent as more encouraging with each passing day, 11.3 percent as very encouraging and smaller percentages selected the remaining categories,’ the survey noted.
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Out of 296 responses, a total of 57.8 percent said women do not have equal opportunity for leadership roles in the Bar, while 42.2 percent said they do. In a separate question, 58.9 percent said they would consider taking up leadership posts in Bar councils and associations, 30.4 percent said no and 10.7 percent were still exploring.
Apart from this, 33.1 percent of the respondents said that they had experienced bias while 23.1 percent said no, 5.3 percent preferred not to say, 29.1 percent said they experienced it occasionally and 9.4 percent said frequently. Many faced issues continuing work after marriage. When child is born, around 33.5 percent of 236 respondents said they faced hardship.
‘Hardship after childbirth was reported by 56.8 percent and difficulties in securing deferment of cases during that period were reported by 31.3 percent of 230 respondents,’ the survey pointed out.
