Over Time

Equality in the workplace received a considerable boost from the fizzy promises of feminism in the 1960s, but the next few decades were still turbulent for many professional women, because there weren’t enough of us to form a critical mass in the professions — including the major law, accounting, and consulting firms. There were, however, enough of us to be considered, literally, fair game. I recall when, in the early 1990s, a senior partner of a large national firm asked, only half in jest, if a new policy on sexual harassment would mean cancelling the Christmas party. Another partner insisted it would be unfair if women on maternity leave were entitled to continue along the partnership track on equal terms. A newly minted female partner informed me that a woman should delay entering practice until after her children had grown. Still, many of the women I knew denied there was a problem at all or were convinced that they did not identify with or need feminism.

I was...