job market botox & other responses to age discrimination/pressures

[anon4now]

Here's the article:

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/04/2008041401c/careers.html


The author beats herself up for responding like any rational person would to the ferociously competitive job market, and to a culture that devalues aging women in particular.  I know people who have:

--had plastic surgery for the humanities job market (and for her, it worked: she landed the R1 TT job),

--used botox for the job market and for conference talks (several, and frankly, they look good),

--had makeovers (hmm, the results on this seem to vary more)

--dye their hair (count me in; also varies)

--change their eyeglasses from dowdy to cool (a must)

etc.  The day that I can be equally & fairly valued regardless of how I look is the day I will stop making artificial efforts like these, and not before.  Give up what little power I as an aging woman have in this culture and job market?  Give it up one millisecond before time wrests it from my wrinkly exfoliated-and-hyaluronic-acid-plumped, age-spotted natural-peroxide-bleached, split-and-yellow-nailed well-manicured hands?  No way.

Is it fair? No way.

But I think the author understood her context and her risks, and she made the right call; and mainly, I am so glad she got the job.

[donstefano]

It's about time we have some serious, well-publicised problems with botox. I don't get it. Why on earth would anyone willingly inject poison into one's body?

Something more is going on in this article: long term adjunct, and not even being considered for a job in one's own department: In all the cases like this I know of, something more was going on, and the candidate didn't even realise it his/her own problems. Sop please don't start to promoting plastic surgery, botox and the like.

[lotsoquestions]

This article made me want to cry and I'm not even sure why.  Perhaps it's because as a long-term adjunct myself I have all the same fears and doubts. 

Perhaps it's because I've heard all the same negativity from many colleagues -- the idea that departments want someone familiar with the latest cutting edge research which apparently can only be carried out by graduate students in their twenties with cool haircuts and leather jeans.  I guess that I'm not sure that cutting edge research = youthful appearing professor.  Is it really that simple? 

[expatinuk]

It made me want to throw up.

[untenured]

Here's the article:

--had plastic surgery for the humanities job market (and for her, it worked: she landed the R1 TT job),

How do you know that it was the surgery that got this person the job and not her qualifications?

Untenured

[larryc]

What Untenured said--how do any of these people know that X is what got them the job? I know that this is the humanities and we are not exactly know for our razor-sharp logic, but come on. These are hardly scientifically controlled conditions.

"But my botox was the only thing that was different and this year I got a job!" No, everything was different this year--every job was different, with a different set of personalities, institutions, and needs. Every search committee was different. Your competition was different. You just can't know.

[chelation]

The content of this article was pathetic (from pathos) and disturbing. I agree with the foregoing posters; I think it wasn't the Botox necessarily. It the confidence and the time she invested in her application materials. Just because a person is young does not mean s/he gets a job. A lot of these enviable young job-seekers suffer from reverse discrimination; students will feel freer challenging a "young" professor than they will an authoritative older one. I know a colleague who is mistaken for a freshman regularly and she's trying to get a T-T. Furthermore, injecting Botox will not inject intellect into a person. She sold out.

Don't judge a person by the texture of her skin but the content of her character. 

[dr_dre]

It does raise the question of confidence, though. If you need Botox, hair plugs, or a boob job to feel like you own the room and have real poise and confidence in yourself... maybe that does work. I wouldn't want to do it myself, but I do see how, for some people, it could boost their confidence enough to make a real difference in in interview setting.

And the age discrimination angle is sometimes compelling. If someone wants a face lift or hair dye to fight that, I am not in a position to judge them, of course.

But one could also start, in many cases, by publishing more.

[sugaree]

What Untenured said--how do any of these people know that X is what got them the job? I know that this is the humanities and we are not exactly know for our razor-sharp logic, but come on. These are hardly scientifically controlled conditions.

"But my botox was the only thing that was different and this year I got a job!" No, everything was different this year--every job was different, with a different set of personalities, institutions, and needs. Every search committee was different. Your competition was different. You just can't know.

This is how I read things - the author spent more dedicated time to compiling materials, there was a new employment context in which she applied and the cosmos alligned correctly this time. Sadly, she will only assume it was the botox that got her the position. This will encourage others in highly competitive fields (wasn't the author in English? - sure, no job competition there!) to seek the "easy" excuse and blame age, hair color, fatness, that pimple, etc. for a lack of success on the market.

I realize that there are prejudices on the market, and I appreciate trying to counter them however one can, but I am disturbed. This experience suggests, hey - just get botox and you'll find a job. What happens when you don't? Next step, face lift? Then anorexia to lose weight? or, tummy tuck? collagen? Then escalation ensues and already underpaid adjuncts are pinning their hopes (and meager salaries) on the beauty racket.

[crowie]

I just like the pseudonym she used.

[goldenapple]

The article was . . . what's a nice word for idiotic?

One tip off: "I'm not vain." Very few of us are not vain in some way. Vanity is a concern with the superficial, and that covers most humans.

The author felt hopeless and frightened about getting a job, so she responded by paying for a marginally effective and possibly unhealthy cosmetic procedure. And then writing an article justifying her bad choice with equally bad logic.

Why not publish an article that's no more stupid but that more people can relate to? "I was depressed and worried about the job market, so I ate a pint of Ben & Jerry's. Then I had the interview, and I got the job. I guess if you want a job in today's market, you'd better get some Cherry Garcia!"

[spork]

I started getting more offers after I bought a new belt.

[navelgazer]

I got both of my job offers after I found out that it's considered bad luck to dry clothes (or hang them at all) over door knobs. I set up a little clothes line in the bedroom instead.

True story! Now spouse must also play this game until he gets a spousal hire.

[dyst_uk]

It's about time we have some serious, well-publicised problems with botox. I don't get it. Why on earth would anyone willingly inject poison into one's body?

The only good reasons I can think of are the medical indications, and even then you'd have to be pretty desperate.

[ab1997by]

I was touched by the travails of this writer and reminded of the age discrimination I saw at my own college.  I chaired an SC one year where one of the top candidates was 60+/-.  Our provost absolutely rejected her on the basis of age.  Botox would have made no difference, but it does reinforce that age discrimination does occur within the academy, so I'm unwillingly to criticize someone for botoxing when on the job market;  it's a cold, cruel world out there.  Read the job search and interviewing threads.