I’m looking for a job, not a date
Months ago, I sent a thank you email to an associate at a big Bay Street firm. This is part of the job (or, in this case, getting the job): I tour the firm, “network”, and go home to write a slew of emails just different enough from one another that I can call them “personalized”.
Participating in the large corporate recruits is analogized, ominously, to dating. You check out the firms’ profiles and join them on a few structured events designed to let you get to know each other. Maybe, you share a glass of wine. The thank you emails are a continuation of this ritual to get a “second date.” As is being “on”—charming, charmed, interesting, interested. Because the premise of pseudo-dating a series of limited liability partnerships is, within the context of legal employment marketplaces, somehow completely normal, I almost never have to worry about the wires getting crossed. But that is because job hunting is not dating.
Nevertheless, sometimes the wires do get crossed. Or, more accurately, people cross the wires (or the line.) In my case, this meant that the associate to whom I sent a thank you email reached out to me from his personal cell phone to the number at the bottom of my email signatures. He proceeded to repeatedly text me, asking me to come get a drink, to come over, to “blow off steam”, etc. He left the texts sufficiently vague that he could probably deny to himself what he was up to. But his motives would have been plain to anyone else.
This development was at once banal and distressing to me, in a way I still cannot fully articulate. It was banal in that it wasn’t that bad. It was disrespectful and creepy, but I can and do live with this low-level solicitation, as many women do. But it was distressing in the way that all cases of uncomfortable, but quotidian, male attention in a professional context is distressing. That is to underscore that it was disrespectful and creepy. It made me feel somehow less worthy of the basic dignity that this man would unquestionably demand for himself.
The conflict that I felt became more identifiable when I considered what this unfortunate interaction changed for me. When I asked myself, around OCIs, whether I would still want to work at a firm that employed someone like this man—I was not certain. It would be wrong to say that I would be happy to work with him, but I would also be lying if I said that I wouldn’t have been grateful to be hired at this firm. Why? Because it still seems like a terrific place. It exudes prestige and is a top choice for many hopeful summer students.
I have been sexually harassed before. But, in those situations, I felt like I could stand up for myself. I could say, or a least think to myself, “Fuck you. You’re nobody”, and move on. This time, I didn’t feel like I had the power to think this way. He didn’t really sexually harass me. He was sloppy and he made me uncomfortable, but I can’t articulate quite where he crossed the line. I am not even sure I could say definitively what socially accepted line he crossed. Was it texting me from his personal number outside of working hours? Was it the content of his messages? But, the most significant impediment to my sense of security and closure is that he is not “nobody”. He was and still is more powerful, more connected, and more experienced in the law than I am. He is someone who could weigh in on my hiring, my advancement, my reputation. He could press his thumb down on the scales, just because he felt spurned. I could not think “Fuck you”, because I was at the firm to send a message that “I am here and eager to be part of the team.”
I ran my experience by two people: an upper year friend who I consider a mentor, and a close friend in 2L. Both women were saddened, but not surprised. It was not the first story my mentor had heard of. It depressed me to learn that she even had a detailed guideline of “next steps when your professional contact tries to turn a networking event into a pick-up.” My friend in 2L had experienced something similar but even worse. She was unlucky enough to have her harasser escalate the situation in-person into a physical altercation.
Part of the confusion in my own feelings about the experience comes from the unfortunate fact that it seems to be relatively normal behaviour. It also seems incredibly minor. My instincts run contrary to themselves—I want to be upset that this is normal. I also want to be nonchalant to something I could have reasonably expected—especially since it is in many respects so minor. It is as though I am trying to justify to myself that I can be angry about something, even if it did not ruin my life.
When, in August, I had applied to the Toronto recruit, I had a New York offer in my back pocket, a course award, and distinction standing. Yet, when I got any OCIs at all, I felt lucky. I never felt that I had a position of privilege, that I was simply getting what I deserved. I certainly never felt powerful enough that I could let myself piss away a professional opportunity by treating it as a pick-up. When this lawyer took advantage of this power imbalance, he reminded of one of my most profound insecurities: that, despite my achievements, I am somehow less than—that I am nobody. My greatest frustration when I think back to this episode is that he was able to do so, and that similar lawyers in similar positions of power have made other candidates feel this way. All summer, this frustration never did anything but paralyze me. What I’m after now is different—I’m feeling nothing more complicated than a desire to be treated as a somebody, worthy of respect.
