IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/gender/v28y2021i1p155-174.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An uneven playing field: Experiences of female legal practitioners in Zimbabwe

Author

Listed:
  • Farai Maunganidze
  • Debby Bonnin

Abstract

This article focuses on women legal practitioners in Zimbabwe. Despite extensive legislation outlawing gender‐based discrimination, Zimbabwean women have not been able to achieve equality in the workplace. The article explores the conundrum posed by, on the one hand, an increase in enrollments and graduations of women law students, and on the other hand, fewer women entering legal practice. The article suggests three dynamics lie behind the failure of practice to attract and retain female lawyers. First, overt discrimination faced by female lawyers. Second, the structuring of the profession and work environment, which creates an “uneven playing field.” And third, the attitudes of male practitioners and partners as well as the spouses of women lawyers, which affect the entry and retention of women in the profession as well as their career prospects. Subsequently, women legal practitioners are accorded a lower professional status than men and are underrepresented in important facets of legal practice. The study was premised on social role theory and the concept of the glass ceiling. Forty‐six participants were interviewed in an interpretivist approach study where data was analyzed using thematic analysis with the assistance of ATLAS TI 8.

Suggested Citation

  • Farai Maunganidze & Debby Bonnin, 2021. "An uneven playing field: Experiences of female legal practitioners in Zimbabwe," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 155-174, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:28:y:2021:i:1:p:155-174
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12535
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12535
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/gwao.12535?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Esinath Ndiweni, 2011. "The impotence of auditing practices in a corrupt environment: some evidence from Zimbabwe," International Journal of Critical Accounting, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 3(2/3), pages 204-219.
    2. Packard, Mark D., 2017. "Where did interpretivism go in the theory of entrepreneurship?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 536-549.
    3. Bekezela Moyo & Edinah Moyo, 2017. "SMEs Management Practices in a Hostile Business Environment in Zimbabwe," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation, Macrothink Institute, Journal of Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation, vol. 4(1), pages 1324-1324, December.
    4. Aviad E. Raz & Gavan Tzruya, 2018. "Doing gender in segregated and assimilative organizations: Ultra†Orthodox Jewish women in the Israeli high†tech labour market," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 361-378, July.
    5. Jenny Rodriguez & Evangelina Holvino & Joyce K. Fletcher & Stella M. Nkomo & Tessa Wright, 2016. "Women's Experience of Workplace Interactions in Male-Dominated Work: The Intersections of Gender, Sexuality and Occupational Group," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(3), pages 348-362, May.
    6. Shoba Arun & Thankom Arun & Vani Borooah, 2004. "The Effect Of Career Breaks On The Working Lives Of Women," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 65-84.
    7. Judith K. Pringle & Candice Harris & Katherine Ravenswood & Lynne Giddings & Irene Ryan & Sabina Jaeger, 2017. "Women's Career Progression in Law Firms: Views from the Top, Views From Below," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 435-449, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sumati Ahuja & Ruth Weatherall, 2023. "“This boys club world is finally getting to me”: Developing our glass consciousness to understand women's experiences in elite architecture firms," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 826-841, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Farai Maunganidze & Debby Bonnin & Shaun Ruggunan, 2021. "Economic Crisis and Professions: Chartered Accountants in Zimbabwe," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440219, February.
    2. Gilbert-Saad, Antoine & Siedlok, Frank & McNaughton, Rod B., 2018. "Decision and design heuristics in the context of entrepreneurial uncertainties," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 75-80.
    3. Daniel Alonso-Martínez & Nuria González-Álvarez & Mariano Nieto, 2021. "Does international patent collaboration have an effect on entrepreneurship?," Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 539-559, December.
    4. Oskar Skans & Linus Liljeberg, 2014. "The wage effects of subsidized career breaks," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 593-617, September.
    5. Sergeeva, Anastasia & Bhardwaj, Akhil & Dimov, Dimo, 2021. "In the heat of the game: Analogical abduction in a pragmatist account of entrepreneurial reasoning," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 36(6).
    6. Jane Sturges, 2020. "In God's name: Calling, gender and career success in religious ministry," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(6), pages 971-987, November.
    7. Efrati, Yaniv, 2023. "Parent-child quality of sex-related communication before and during the COVID-19 pandemic," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    8. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7049 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Russ McBride & Mark D. Packard & Brent B. Clark, 2024. "Rogue Entrepreneurship," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 48(1), pages 392-417, January.
    10. Borooah, Vani, 2023. "Remuneration in Cricket," MPRA Paper 123306, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Yu Yang & Rongxin He & Ning Zhang & Liming Li, 2023. "Second-Child Fertility Intentions among Urban Women in China: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-16, February.
    12. Elina Meliou & Oliver Mallett, 2022. "Negotiating Gendered Ageing: Intersectional Reflexivity and Experiences of Incongruity of Self-Employed Older Women," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 36(1), pages 101-118, February.
    13. Krystal Wilkinson & Julia Rouse, 2023. "Solo‐living and childless professional women: Navigating the ‘balanced mother ideal’ over the fertile years," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 68-85, January.
    14. Alison Sheridan & Lucie Newsome, 2021. "Tempered disruption: Gender and agricultural professional services," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 1040-1058, May.
    15. David McClendon & Janet Kuo & R. Raley, 2014. "Opportunities to Meet: Occupational Education and Marriage Formation in Young Adulthood," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(4), pages 1319-1344, August.
    16. Justy, Théo & Pellegrin-Boucher, Estelle & Lescop, Denis & Granata, Julien & Gupta, Shivam, 2023. "On the edge of Big Data: Drivers and barriers to data analytics adoption in SMEs," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    17. Omar Manky & Sergio Saravia, 2022. "From pure academics to transformative scholars? The crisis of the “ideal academic” in a Peruvian university," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 971-987, July.
    18. Aparicio, Sebastian & Urbano, David & Stenholm, Pekka, 2021. "Attracting the entrepreneurial potential: A multilevel institutional approach," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    19. Shahid, Pirzada Syed Rizwan, 2023. "Founder's Human Capital and the Entrepreneurial Process Duration," OSF Preprints yf6mg, Center for Open Science.
    20. Packard, Mark D., 2018. "Why I am not a performativist (yet)," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 39-44.
    21. Packard, Mark D. & Bylund, Per L., 2021. "From homo economicus to homo agens: Toward a subjective rationality for entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 36(6).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:28:y:2021:i:1:p:155-174. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0968-6673 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.