I was nominated for the senior board of my journal. For two positions, actually, two of four. Clearly I was well regarded during the nomination period.
Tonight the elections were held. We each gave a little three minute speech, and then answered questions from the field. The EIC (elected last week) raised his hand after my speech, and asked me this question:
“These jobs are a lot of work, you know. Do you think you’ll be able to perform either of them, given the pressures of motherhood?”
Needless to say, I lost both elections.
What. A. Shithead.
Seriously. Did this guy not TAKE Con Law?!? (Okay, I may be thinking Employment Discrimination, but still.) WTF? How can he think that is REMOTELY appropriate?
I seriously think that if that happened here, I’d complain to someone to do with students (not in a “make them give me a position” way – because god knows you don’t want to work with that guy! – but in a “you have got to make it clear shit like this is “unacceptable way”). But I go to a hippie granola liberal school.
Anyway. I’m TOTALLY outraged on your behalf!!
We had it out. He is humble and apologetic. Said he didn’t realize that it was inappropriate, but thinking back now it was obvious, and he’s embarrassed.
Well, ok. So it goes.
Seriously?!!! What decade is this person living in?
This is one of those moments that require a bottle of wine and a postmortem list of responses, such as:
“Do you think your allocation of time being a total SOB is going to interfere with your ability to carry out the duties of your elected position?”
“Seeing as I guarantee I am currently operating on less sleep this week than you got last night, I question your intelligence for even asking that question. I have sleep deprivation as my excuse, what’s yours?”
“The fact that you even asked that question causes me to question your ability to hold the position you are newly elected to. All in favor of a do-over, please raise your hand!”
Uggggghhhhh…..sorry. I’m glad you had it out- hopefully he learned his lesson and will be more respectful in the future. But crappy that you had to be the one to suffer 🙁
I’m sorry, Gill. Once upon a time, I was in a somewhat similar situation, in that I was in an election, gave my little speech, and was then verbally slapped by an inappropriate question. It was a deeply unpleasant experience.