"Are you married?"
When I hear that question come out of the mouth of the department chairman's wife during dinner on my campus visit, my stock answer to inappropriate interview questions, said with a big smile -- "Why do you ask?" -- seems not to fit. I know why she's asking. We're virtual strangers sharing an awkward meal and she's merely trying to find out if we have anything in common.
Or perhaps, it occurs to me, as I smile pleasantly and say "no," noticing her husband is paying attention to my answer, perhaps she's been urged to ask what he can't.
Certain topics are taboo in a job interview, including questions about marital status and (usually) religious affiliation. During my conference interviews last year, several interviewers had stammered and looked sheepish, as they explained their college's religious background and the need for a professor to be able to shepherd the flock adequately. My field is religious studies: I know (or so I think) how to handle people of various religious backgrounds. And I can tell when someone wishes to be allowed to ask whether I'm Roman Catholic (for example).
In those circumstances, I often find it easy to offer up the information they can't ask. I simply say "I'm Episcopalian" -- a useful answer in the Catholic circumstance, since it gets me off the Catholic hook but shows that I share an appreciation for tradition and ritual. I did, in fact, join the church shortly before embarking on my job search, and I am grateful to be able to give a short, one-denomination answer, rather than the long explanation I would have given ("Christian, feminist, ecologically minded, with a strong dose of Jesus-style justice").
But when the chairman's wife begins fishing for information -- surely for the simple reason that her life as a stay-at-home mom of six kids has very little in common with mine -- I find myself feeling a bit more cautious than I am with religious questions. I won't just offer up the answers she's looking for. That's because I am a member of an underappreciated minority: those who are not heterosexual.
I say underappreciated because most other groups that claim minority status -- women, people of African or Hispanic heritage, even people with certain disabilities -- can be proudly touted by the college in diversity statistics and, thus, are clearly seen as a hiring boon.
Men who love men, and women who love women, by contrast, are not listed on the diversity ticket. Indeed, in many institutions, those relationships are not even acknowledged as legitimate, since benefits such as health-care coverage, free or reduced tuition, and gym memberships are routinely denied to unmarried life partners.
One reason academe values various minority groups is the different perspective those scholars bring to their work and their capacity to advise minority students. I would argue that nonheterosexual people bring their own valuable and unique perspectives, and an important mentoring capability, to a college or university.
But gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals are not sought out for the unique contributions they might bring to an institution. And even if they were sought out, interviewers couldn't directly ask candidates about their sexual orientation, which, unlike race or gender, can rarely be deduced from a face-to-face interview.
Interviewers appreciate any bone I can throw them -- any personal information I can reveal that might give them a handle on who I am and what I'm like. So I'm happy to offer information about my personal interests, my parents and sisters, and my travels. But I do need to be careful when the topic is marital status, because that may raise issues of sexual orientation, which may prove to be detrimental to my chances in the job search.
So when the chairman's wife asked me if I was married, I answered "no" as pleasantly as I could, and changed the subject. But I bit my tongue to keep from adding, with some resentment and righteous anger, "because it's illegal in this state and many others for me to marry the one I love; and this charming Catholic college will likely never acknowledge the legitimacy of our relationship because of its tradition and theology, which, yes, I have indeed studied and would gladly refute if you'd care to discuss it."
When I had a campus visit at a different Catholic college in the Midwest, I consulted with a gay professor from my undergraduate days. He had a friend there whom I called with my questions about what life was like for gay faculty members at the college. That man very kindly took time to talk with me, and also recommended I raise the issue with the chairman on my visit, which I did. The college is known for being liberal, and the chairman proudly told me that he and other faculty members were lobbying hard to gain partner benefits, but admitted that their religious affiliations, and the political climate in the state, made their success unlikely.
At another college, I had no personal connections, so I found a campus group for gay and lesbian students and contacted its faculty sponsor, a professor in the English department. "This school will offer partner benefits when hell freezes over," she said bitterly. "But it's important for the students to have professors who can support them. I feel that it's my calling to help the gay and lesbian students in an otherwise unfriendly place."
My job search last year had a tepid response -- just a couple of conference interviews, both of which miraculously turned into a couple of on-campus interviews but went no further. I hadn't finished my dissertation yet, anyway. I am wrapping up my dissertation now (only revisions remain to be done) as I embark on my second year on the market.
Jobs are scarce so I will take whatever I can get. I know I will have few options, even though my degree will come from a fairly prestigious institution and my advisers say my work is of high quality. I may end up at a college affiliated with a religion that is not gay-friendly (and to be fair, I should mention that Catholics aren't the only ones denying the validity of my relationship!).
Even if the college is welcoming, it may be located in a state where my love is unwelcome. In both cases, I think I'll feel compelled to accept the job, but it frightens me to ask my sweetheart to join me in a place that won't welcome her. It frightens me to think of raising a family someplace where institutional support is so thin.
She and I will face stresses that other couples won't. I hope our relationship will weather them, but it might not. I'm willing to risk it -- I think the rewards would be worthwhile -- but I resent having to face that risk.
My faith reminds me that I'm not in charge of this process anyway: I cannot control what happens on the job search. I can do my best, and pray, but ultimately it's out of my hands. Through all of it, my task is to stay true to myself and my beliefs, and to respond to my circumstances with as much grace and kindness as I can.
The chairman's wife and I, as it turns out, got along quite well. When we parted, she wished me the very best on my job search. The chairman smiled approvingly. I was grateful for their warmth, though I also felt a bit like an imposter, because of what I had carefully avoided revealing about my life.
This time around, I hope an appropriate position will come my way. I will fill out applications and compose cover letters, and I'll have a much clearer sense of what I'm doing and a much better idea of what to expect from interviews. And I hope that when inappropriate questions arise -- as they inevitably will -- I can respond to them not with resentment and righteous anger but with politeness, honesty, and care.
