Esmeralda Regalado, Political Science major, and Dr. Tao Dumas partnered on a MUSE (Mentored Undergraduate Summer Experience) project in July 2025.
Although women now outnumber men in U.S. law schools, many markers of inequality persist in the American legal profession and are particularly acute for women of color. Gendered and raced stereotypes about who “looks like” a lawyer can result in women lawyers experiencing frequent messages of nonbelonging from fellow attorneys, clients, judges, and court staff, such as being mistaken for non-lawyer, lower status jobs. It is important to understand both the challenges and the coping strategies used by different groups of women in the legal profession, particularly given the important role of the law as a pipeline for judicial and political office.
Esme and Dr. Dumas’s project, “’Looking the Part:’: Women Lawyers, Experiences of Nonbelonging, and Political Ambition in the U.S.,” draws on focus group and survey findings to explore how women lawyers’ experiences contribute to their desire to persist and advance in the legal profession and to pursue opportunities to become judges and other elected officials.
MUSE gives students the opportunity to conduct research in collaboration with TCNJ faculty members.
