In a recent essay for Above the Law, attorney Jeanine M. Donahue reflects on a moment from 1987, when she worked as a case assistant at a prestigious San Francisco law firm. The moment centered on a box of Pamprin, a menstrual pain reliever, which she says captured the entire workplace culture in one small, ridiculous object.
Donahue notes that the women in her group wore pants to work and were stationed on lower floors, away from client areas and power offices. The implication is that these women were not yet the focus of the firm's attention, but the Pamprin box still served as a reminder of how gender was managed and signaled in that environment.
The essay is part of a series on motherhood in the legal profession, produced in partnership with MothersEsquire. Its significance lies less in the object itself and more in how such artifacts can reveal the unspoken rules and hierarchies that women navigated in legal workplaces, then and now.