To report friend to FB for photo of her blacked up?

[Greyhound]

I'm really shocked - cousin of mine has pic of herself on Facebook blacked up. She is white. The picture is of her at a fancy dress party - she has covered her face in dark brown stage make up and is wearing an "Afro" wig and Rastafarian style striped hat.

Her husband is also blacked up.

I would think it would function best as a way of seeing who felt the most comfortable in cocktail parties. i.e. people from a pretty narrow background.

The cocktail party discussion brings to my mind another way in which women can be disadvantaged in law firms (I speak only of the US here). It is difficult to advance in many firms if you are not bringing business into the firm. Many of the traditional ways of doing this are still very male-centric: the weekly golf game, membership in traditionally men-only clubs (even if they have recently admitted token women), social contacts with senior executives of the client firms, the majority of whom still tend to be men. Being capable and good at what you do is often not enough.

Of my group of close friends who are women and lawyers, each of us started out in a large prestigious law firm; not one of us is still there. Yes, we made the choice to leave for corporate in-house positions, for legal aid, for academia, and for non-legal fields. The men are still there, and they are partners.

Scone, are you saying that you are disadvantaged because you aren't a partner when you say that you made the choice to leave?

I liked the firm very much; I still have good friends there; I did not experience individual discrimination by any of my colleagues.

I was making a point about structural disadvantages.

No sexism, racism or homophobia in law firms? Count me in the agog camp. Being a good lawyer is the only important thing in who gets promoted? Come off it. I have met a number of senior women lawyers who prefer to think they succeeded because of their inherent specialness whereas other women couldn't just cut the mustard. This is more appealing than acknowledging the structural discrimination faced by most women.

Sorry this is from yesterday, but just had to address it.

Third-wave feminists are losing ground simply because your work was accomplished, largely, forty years ago. There are more important issues at stake today, like class inequality (where NO progress has been made. At all.)

Men commit 90% of the murder in this country and 98% of sexual violence.

Excuse me if I still think that's kind of a big deal.

Oh fgs they are asked to come and meet with us for a glass of wine and nibbles. All the current trainees attend as well to mix and mingle. If you think that is intimidating you should see what hoops other firms make applicants go through.

And as for "this disadvantages working class children" we are dealing with people who have 3 or 4 years university experience behind them. If they can't hold a glass of wine and have a general conversation with a grown up then by then yes, they probably are in the wrong field.

I would be much happier to be tested on my abilities or observed socially in a way that didn't disadvantage me because of my dislike of wearing dresses.

How on earth did you get to that conclusion? doesn't involve cocktail dresses. It's a drinks reception in the early evening. We would assume the applicants will have enough common sense to turn up in the sort of clothes they would wear to an office if they got a job.

Scone the evening drinks reception is the first part of thinning out the large number of trainee applications. Around 80 to 100 will be thinned down to around 20 who will be interviewed fully. The Law Schools are turning out far more graduates than there are jobs for.

I have no idea why you'd call an event like that a 'cocktail party'.

Because that's how we refer to it in the office.

A previous firm I worked for made its trainee applicants turn up for a whole day assessment at a hotel. Their first task was to be put in groups of 4 and were given 45 minutes to draft a marketing presentation followed by 30 minutes to prepare a one to one presentation on the topic of "what I am passionate" about, followed by psychometric tests and a letter writing task. They had no prior warning of this. It was bloody exhausting being one of the assessors, goodness knows what the applicants made of.

Hissing , good communication skills are essential both for communicating with existing clients and retaining and developing business.

That actually sounds much more appropriate & genuinely diagnostic, tbh.

Anyway...not what the thread's about.

Except that method was based on more than 50% of applications being rejected without the applicants ever being seen as it wasn't possible to do that sort of assessment for every CV submitted.

The method my firm uses gives all applicants the chance to make an initial impression to be called for a fuller interview. Which would you prefer?

See above. I think, fwiw, that serious applications should be treated on substantive merit & initially thinned out by CV, but how your industry/particular firm arranges these things is for them to decide.

Although, assuming your applicants don't routinely arrive at your 'cocktail parties' sporting blackface to complement their office wear, it's still a bit of a distraction from the actual thread.

Well, to be fair to Phaedra, I did ask about the cocktail party. And the thread at that point had moved to a discussion of sex-based discrimination.

Raven the thread had moved on. The intense method I mentioned also meant that at least half, in fact thinking about it probably about 3/4 of people, who applied were rejected with no opportunity of making any impression. Whether they were serious or not it's far too labour intensive to give everyone a chance. We at least give everyone who applies the chance to meet with us.

Your comment about not turning up in black face is pretty snide by the way.

Now, that's am interesting thought - turning up at a law firm cocktail party in blackface. Still, if female, it would distract all the male chauvinists from thinking you might get pregnant and bugger off on maternity leave.

Doubt it Greyhound

I would not mind the day of tasks for applicants at all and of course having good communication skills is important for most professional jobs- but I think using a cocktail party as a process of selecting people for a professional position is an uncomfortable idea that sends an odd and unpalatable message about whose face will fit. In my opinion.

and Phaedra, to answer your question, I would definitely prefer to be assessed by my CV than by a cocktail party of any type. In the last selection panel I was involved with, names were actually removed from the applications before they are assessed- which I don't think is a bad idea either tbh.

Did you think we don't read the cvs as part of the whole process? Really and truly?

I think names removed from CV's is an excellent idea.

I used to work in HR and I have a horrific story of my boss - who was a bit of an old dinosaur. We were reading CV's for a senior management job. Out of those invited to interview, we saw one who had a very English name, Colin Smith or along those lines.

When he came in he was of Asian origin. My boss came out of the interview and said: "I don't like that. He had an English name - it's like he was trying to fool us!" Really.

I was so I didn't know what to say.

no of course not. I didn't say that- you said that the cocktail parties is a way of giving people a chance to present themselves when otherwise they would have just been screened by CV. I was saying i would rather be screened by CV (alone) than a cocktail party of any type.

Is that clearer?

Sorry that was to Phaedra