Welcome back to The Pink Ghetto, a series where we take a look at some of the most appalling stories from one of the most sexist industries in the world: the legal profession. Today, we’ll take a look at the oftentimes sexualized career advice and harassment that women in law school and in law firms must endure simply due to their gender. These are real emails that we’ve received from real readers.
When you see things like this happening, say something. Together, we can inspire the change necessary to stop this disturbing behavior from being so prevalent in the law.
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Our office of Career Services holds mandatory mock interviews for 1L students. My interview went well, but I had not received critical feedback from my interviewer. Afterwards, I was speaking with one of the female OCS Deans and shared my disappointment with her. This was her advice, “Don’t wear your hair down for interviews because you have pretty hair and it’s distracting.”
I’m a 3L at a T14 school and I’m good-looking (I did a lot of modeling before law school and I still do some on the side to help pay tuition fees). I get a lot of attention from my male classmates and it has always annoyed and bothered me, but until this incident, it was always in a respectful and non-harassing manner.
A few days ago, I got a Facebook friend request from a guy I didn’t know, but I saw that he was a student of the same law school I go to and that we had a few friends in common (all students of our law school), so I figured it was maybe someone in one of my classes that I had simply not noticed. I accepted him as a friend and he immediately came to talk to me. He was very forward, and immediately ask me out for a drink in big city next to our law school. I politely replied that I had absolutely no idea who he was and that I was not interested in going out for a drink with him. He did not accept no for an answer and kept insisting; telling me things such as “if you never tried, you never know.” I politely declined one more time and specified again that I had never even noticed him in the law school building and that I was not interested in grabbing a drink. He kept insisting.
I was busy writing a paper and had a lot to do, so just to get rid of him, I told him I was seeing someone at the moment (it is true that I am seeing someone, but I usually prefer to decline only by stating “I am not interested,” but “I am not interested” clearly was not working with him and I was out of time and patience). He then responded to me that he accepted this “good excuse” and that he wouldn’t ask again. I was shocked. I replied to him, “Good excuse? Just so we’re clear, you do realize that a woman is allowed to say no, even if she is 100% single?” He didn’t reply to this accusation; just mentioned he was “very respectful” and “sorry if he annoyed me.”
I just hope I never have to work with him at school or in a professional capacity. Also, if this guy feels it’s okay to talk to a classmate that way, I can’t imagine what kind of things he feel are acceptable to say to a girl he was no professional affiliation with.
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I work at a Biglaw firm where I am harassed for my ethnicity and gender. On a near daily basis, a partner asks me why I am working and how in my culture women have to stay home and cook and clean. He can’t understand why I’m working and makes comments that I probably got a degree to be a more appealing marriage prospect. On top of that, female partners at the firm ask me very personal questions about my desire to have children. These women have also told me that working at a firm means no family life and no room for kids… especially if I want to make it far. To me, this is supremely disappointing.
I’m a 2L at a top 50 law school. At the beginning of the year, I was in the Law Review office prepping for my on-campus interviews. One of our advisors — a professor — came to the office to give some advice to us female 2Ls doing OCIs: If you’re wearing an engagement ring, take it off for the interviews. “Not wearing it makes you more employable.” (Because wearing it means you’re obviously going to have babies right away.) Of course, nothing was said to our male counterparts wearing wedding rings.
When I was a first-year law student, another male first-year student was quite persistent in pursuing several female first-year students, to the point that it was harassing. I’m talking about deliveries of flowers, balloons, stuffed teddy bears, notes attached to our lockers, etc. It never mattered if the woman was dating someone else, married, or engaged. He would never take no for an answer, and several of us had rather uncomfortable physical encounters with him where he would try to corner us in the library or classroom to “talk” to us or insist that we go out to dinner with him. It did not help that the guy was very, very strange in appearance and behavior. Nobody wanted to go near the guy.
A group of about 10 women (I am not exaggerating) met with the Dean of Students to discuss the issue, since it was getting way out of hand and affecting a large number of female first-year students. The Dean basically brushed us off and said he was harmless. He said he couldn’t really do anything about it, but he would “talk” to the freak about it.
Do you have a law school or law firm story you’d like to see appear in The Pink Ghetto? Please email me with “The Pink Ghetto” in the subject line (or find me on Twitter: @StaciZaretsky). You will be kept anonymous. Submissions are always welcome!
Staci Zaretsky is an editor at Above the Law. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. Follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.