Female law graduate receives Windex to clean the glass ceiling

25 July, 2016. 14:45

| Editor-at-large | Contact

WIPING AWAY THE TEARS as their daughter graduates at the top of her class, parents Bill and Amanda Batten-Shein couldn’t be prouder watching Katie (23) shake hands with the Dean, who handed over her Bachelor of Laws and a bottle of Windex as they posed for the camera.

“She’s finally done it,” said mother Amanda.

“We’re so happy that she accepted the Windex, too. That means some grandkids aren’t too far away,”

“Now all she has to do keep going to Ryan’s Bar until she meets a nice boy whose played lots of contact sport. Then she can settle down, provided that boy hasn’t had too many concussions.”

Katie follows her father and two elder brothers into the legal profession and indeed the same firm. She plans to take up a junior position working under father when she returns from Europe in December.

Explaining that his law firm, Batten Cohen & Webster, employs more females than males, Bill agrees that the work environment will be a great place for his daughter to cut her legal teeth.

“It’s simple economics, a no-brainer,” said Bill.

“I hire more female law graduates because they work harder than the boys, but I don’t have to pay them as much. Simple. I don’t get why more people don’t do it,”

“And if they knock on my door telling me they’re getting married or they’re pregnant. No problem. I just offer them a nice severance package, more of a golden parachute really. Depends on what the bloke does. If he’s a lawyer or a stockbroker or something like that, the girls never come back to work anyway,”

“But if a bloke comes in and says he’s getting married or he’s having a kid, then I’m obligated to either give him a raise or promote him. You see what I’m getting at?”

Katie cautiously tip-toed around the issue as her parents joyfully inspected her degree and Windex bottle, saying only that progress has been made because, in her mother’s day, you couldn’t see what was on the other side of the glass.