| Transcript |
MARTINA STAPLES
getting started•
in law
By Barbara Hugetz
After eleven years of teaching
high school English and four
years of attending law school
nights and summers, Martina
Staples, at age 34, was sworn in
by the Supreme Court of Texas
on November 1.
"I simply was not realizing
my potential in teaching. It
became increasingly frustrating
and inhibiting to me particularly
in the amount of record-keeping
and lack of administrative
support. Law school/' she says,
"was the most exhilarating,
mind-expanding experience of
my Uie."
At South Texas College of
Law, Staples became a member
of the South Texas Law Journal
and received the Journal's
award last spring for the outstanding article published in the
field of federal law. She also
qualified for the school's honorary fraternity, Order of* the
Lytae and received two American Jurisprudence Awards for
the highest grades in her torts
and family law classes. In
addition, Staples was honored
with recognition for scholarship
by the national chapter of her
law fraternity, Delta Theta Phi
Despite her law school
credentials, Staples found employment difficulties in the law
profession. "I interviewed for a
number of legal positions before-
deciding to go into private
practice," she says.
"Although it is true that
every profession is now open to
women, law firms still only hire
a nominal number of women.
footnotes continued from
page 5
1 Ehrenreich, Barbara and
English, Deirdre. Witches.
Midlives and Nurses. Glass
Mountain Pamphlets, Oyster
Bay, NY.
2 based on statistics gathered by
Dr. Linda Fidell, Assoc. Prof,
of Psychology, California State
University; Sex Differences in
Health Care, American Assoc,
for the Advancement of
Science, 140th Annual Meeting
San Francisco. In 1972 40% of
U.S. adult female population
were prescribed mood altering
drugs. About half of these
women manifested symptoms
of physical disease.
3 Adams, Aileen and Cowan,
Geoffrey. "The Human Guinea
Pig: How We Test New Drugs"
in World. December 5, 1972.
4 Depo-Provera. IUDs, injectable
contraceptives and DES were a
few described in Kennedy's
Congressional Hearings
"Quality of Health Care -
Human Experimentation."
Hearings before the Subcommittee on Health of the
Committee on Labor and Public
Welfare. U.S. Senate. 93rd
Congress. Parts la and 3.
February. 1973.
5 J.R. Willson. M.D., C.T.
Beecham. M.D. and E. Car-
rington, M.D. Obstetrics and
Gynecology. 4th edition. C.V.
Mosby Co., St. Louis. All
quotes in this paper are taken
from 55 page descriptions of
women's minds (Chps. 4&8
entitled, "Psychology and life
periods of women" and "Sexual responses of women, dys
menorrhea and premenstrual
tension.") Copy of text with
quoted passages outlined is
available upon request.
6 Freud, "The Economic Problems of Masochism." 1924
Collected Papers. Vol. II.
7 Scott, R.C., M.D. World of a
Gynecologist. London: Oliver
and Boyd. 1968.
8 Statistics supplied by C.V.
Mosby Publishing Company.
St. Louis.
9 Ralph Nader has published in
his column "Nader Reports" in
Ladies Home Journal that 50%
of hysterectomies are unnecessary, according to a poll of
leading pathologists.
10 Freud, op. cit.
11 Ruben, I.C. and Novak, Josef.
Integrated Gynecology: Principles and Practice. New York:
McGraw Hill. 1956 p. 77.
12 Parsons, Langdon and Som:
mers, S.C. Gynecology. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders. 1962.
1962.
UJeffcoate, Thomas. Principles
of Gynecology. London: Butter-
worth. 1967
14 Novak. E.R. and Jones, G.S.
and Jones, H.W. Novak's
Testbooks of Gynecology.
Baltimore: Williams and Wil-
kens. 1970.
15 Lewis, Denslow. Reprinted in
the American Journal of
Obstetrics and Gynecology by
M.H. Hollender, M.C. 1970.
p. 108.
16 Diseases of Women. C.V.
Mosby Co., St. Louis. 1926.
17 Greer, Germaine, The Female
Eunuch.
18Sillman, L.R., M.D. "Femininity and Paranoidism" in the
Journal of Nervous and Mental
Disease. Vol. 143, No. 2 p. 163.
As one interviewer told me,
'We just want to be sure we get
the right female.' The one and
the only one is what they are
saying."
When she first entered law
school she was single, recently
divorced. "Both financially and
emotionally it was tough," she
says.
The greatest difficulty she
found in law school was the lack
of a strong support base.
"When a man enters a professional school, he is embraced
with support from family and a
degree of envy from other men.
When a woman does the same
thing, she is still often con
fronted with why she is not
getting married, having children or caring for her family
full-time."
Interviewed in her office at
711 Main, Staples said that the
main area of law practice in
which she would like to see
reform is domestic relations.
"Too often in the past women
have not participated as fully as
they could have in their own
legal battles because their lawyers made the decisions." She
adds that women have encouraged this by looking on their
lawyers as father-figures to take
care of them. However, increasingly, women are wanting
to know what are their legal
rights, risks and options.
"Formerly passive and accepting women who are at the
crossroads of their lives in
becoming autonomous and independent persons certainly
want enough information to
make their own decisions.
"I like best what Eleanor
Roosevelt said concerning women and life. '. . .we discover
what we really are and we make
our real decision for which we
are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself
because . . .The influence you
exert is through your own life
and what you become ..."
When I get home from
the office, it's feet-up and
find-out-what-l-missed time.
My man is Steve Smith.
He's really a cut above
anybody else in town."
Let Steve and his friends Alexis South and Ron
Franklin make your day, weeknights at 6 and
10p.m.
Come home
to Steve Smith
at 6 and K) pm
KHOUTV
NEWS®
Page 12
Houston Breakthrough
November 1976 |
