Howlin' With the OWLS, Part 1

I'm so psyched.

I have just been rolled into a snowballing e-mail started by a group of righteous women I went to law school with, looking to have a reunion. We called ourselves the Owls, for Organization for Women Law Students and Staff. We were a student group, but so much more than that. We were a clubhouse, a haven, a lifeline for each other during the nasty business of navigating law school, and all of our other life choices during that pivotal time. During those three years, four of us got engaged; one came out of the closet; one left an abusive spouse; one faced an unintended pregnancy; we all flopped down on the OWLSS lounge couch after particularly brutal rounds of Socratic hazing; some of us graduated at the top of the class; some quit.

We came from all walks of life, but what is class in law school? As a student you are ramen-noodle poor and yet as a future lawyer, no one is crying for you. I learned a good lesson about so-called sophistication my first week. It was the “Summer of Mercy” and anti-abortion activists had pledged to make Iowa City the next Wichita. I went over to see my new acquaintances -- "alleged feminists" -- graduates of the local hayseed college, thinking I would blow their minds. Let’s go over and help the counter-protest at the women’s clinic, I challenged. Wait right here, they replied. And came out with signs and t-shirts and my buddy C’s got cuffs and a gag to symbolize the “gag rule.” Turns out these hayseeds could teach this DC kid a thing or two about demonstrations.