Creepy indeed. A law gossip blog (who knew?) is soliciting nominations for the sexiest female law school dean. Because, you know, when you’ve clerked for the Supreme Court, graduated at the top of your class, been published dozens of times over, and worked your ass off to succeed in what remains a remarkably male-dominated (and remarkably white) field, it’s really important to make sure that you know your place as a pretty thing to be admired. Or torn apart, as is inevitable in these kinds of contests.
Some of the nominations seem tongue-in-cheek and genuinely laudatory of the nominee’s accomplishments, using “sexy” in a Real Hot 100 kind of way. Others, though, aren’t quite so charming:
“I apologize in advance for ruining your contest. After you put up this nominee, the vote won’t even be close. She will lead the pack right out of the gate, and she will continue to lead until the cows come home.”
“So I’m sorry. But I couldn’t sit on the sidelines and watch someone other than Asha Rangappa win the title of Hottest Law School Dean in the United States. It would be a miscarriage of justice.”
“Asha is nothing short of stunning — an overused word, kind of like ‘brilliant’ in the pages of ATL and UTR — but so, so true. She could be a model. When I attended Yale Law School with her (she was class of 2000), she was the best-looking woman in the entire school. Not just her year, but the whole damn place. Asha Rangappa, without question!”
“I write to nominate Asha Rangappa in your beautiful law school dean contest. First, she’s a genius: Princeton, Yale Law, a Fulbright, a First Circuit clerk. Second, she’s totally badass: from 2002 to 2005, she worked in the FBI as a Special Agent, focusing on counterintelligence investigations in New York City. How cool is that?”
“Third, and most importantly, Asha is simply gorgeous. There hasn’t been this beautiful a woman in federal law enforcement since Jennifer Lopez pretended to be a U.S. US Marshal in ‘Out of Sight.’ This South Asian beauty — with her milk-chocolate skin, lively eyes, Julia Roberts smile, and reddish black tresses — will demolish the rest of your field.”
And the comments are… special. A nice mix of racism, sexism and male entitlement (“She’s smart (for a woman),” “None of these chicks are hot enough for my standards, which are the universal rules of who is and is not attractive,” and “Indian people smell like curry” just about sum it up). Everything we all love about beauty contests, and none of that “scholarship pageant” silliness. Rock on, David Lat — you’re a true rebel.
via.
I noticed a bunch of posters around NYU today for a talk by a former UChicago Law dean of admissions. I didn’t think much at the time of the prominent place given on the poster to a picture of her face, but now that I think about it, I really wonder whether that’s how they’d have advertised the talk if it were a guy or if she weren’t attractive by conventional standards. Hrm.
[...] ssip blog is having a competition for the “sexiest female law school dean” and it’s an outrage! And of course – do tell [...]
To be fair, the same site is also doing the same contest for male deans as well. I haven’t read the comments for either contest, so I am not sure if the same attitudes are cropping up in the male version though.
I think it’s completely fair to take issue with the comments left on Above the Law, but I also think we’ve got to have a bit of a sense of humor about this contest. There was one for men as well. That one came first. Many of the nominees thought it was funny and sent in statements, etc. The website’s commentary is less offensive than that of its commenters (and we all know that blogs sometimes get comments ranging from stupid to truly offensive). While I understand some frustration with this contest, I also think that – stupid, misogynist commenters aside – it’s funny. And that’s ok too.
Actually, people who aren’t conventionally attractive were voted higher than Asha. I was surprised. No mention of body parts and more mention of the sexiness of intellect. However, the exotification has got to stop. No excuse for that.
How do you get to be a dean 5 years after graduation?
Or 6.
Hey, I went to law school because I couldn’t do math.
There are deans and then there are deans. Some schools have a dozen or more vice deans, associat deans, and assistant deans. At other schools it’s a much more exalted title.
Here’s a contest: see how quickly we can get David Lat expelled from law school for being a total jackass and demeaning the entire profession before he’s even out of the gate.
Kelley–
David Lat is not a law student.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lat
Maybe he thinks he can reproduce the hotties of the federal judiciary contest? (Which was won by a man who nominated himself, as I recall.)
Babes ipsa loquitor was funny. This is just kinda pathetic.
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