Why Representation Is Not Authority: Theorising Women Lawyers’ Careers in Shekhawati, India

Abstract

Although women join legal schools across India nowadays, there exist difficulties in building successful careers in law, both in terms of their work as practitioners and judges. This research clarifies the reasons why such barriers remain unresolved, and the study is limited by the metropolises and High Court systems. This theoretical article builds an integrative model explaining the mechanisms of women’s career development based on gender norms and pressures, their professional autonomy, and the importance of institutional support in this process. By creatively combining ideas of gendered organizations theory, feminist institutionalism, and agency/structure theory, the study formulates a number of hypotheses related to factors affecting women’s careers in law. The study, including empirical data from the Sikar district, demonstrates that women have the opportunity to represent themselves within local organizations but do not have real political power. Moreover, some evidence indicates the influence of caste on the environment in which women work. Since the existing studies do not include women in the region, all hypotheses still require further verification.