Help wanted: nice legs an asset but no guarantee

I saw the job advertised in the daily newspaper. It was in a field that I knew well, it required skills that I had a-plenty, it was part-time to be done out of my home. (It was called part-time which means it would be part-time pay but would quite likely demand full-time hours. Apart from that, it was perfect.) The person who got the position would report to a board of directors.

I needed that job really badly. I was on unemployment insurance which was going to run out. It was the middle of a recession and there were few jobs available.

I can't remember the building where the interview was held although I remember that when I went in, there was a pleasant waiting area, with couches and easy chairs and bookcases. I was the only one there.

Within a few minutes, another applicant arrived. He was a young man, pleasant-looking, nicely dressed. We chatted a bit and made a little joke about both being there for the same job. He had recently moved to town. This was his first job interview. His wife — they hadn't been married long — had just found out she was pregnant.

I was called in first. A few chairs had been set up around a low table. There were two women sitting waiting and they stood and invited me to join them. I sat down. The third interviewer — a man — was getting a cup of coffee over at a side table. When he came over to the circle of chairs, he made a point of stopping, looking directly at my legs, and choosing a chair across from me.

"I'm going to sit right here," he announced, "where I get the best view."

I was wearing a knee-length skirt and basic pumps. I was not dressed provocatively, in case you're wondering.

I was good at job interviews and this was no exception. I was well-prepared and although the man made me uncomfortable, the two women were really nice and I rose above him. They all thanked me warmly when I left and I felt good. I told the young man in the waiting area that I hoped everything went well with the pregnancy and I wished him all the best.

A few days later, I got a note in the mail thanking me for taking the time to meet with them and telling me that the job had been offered to another applicant. They wished me well.

I was terribly disappointed and I was even a little surprised. I couldn't believe that young man had done a better interview than I had.

The interview was in the early fall and I was back on the job-hunting trail.

In early December, I got a Christmas card in the mail. I didn't recognize the name but it included a note and the sender identified herself in the first sentence as one of the interviewers for the job a few months earlier. She said she felt very bad about what had happened and as she was no longer associated with the organization, she wanted to tell me what had happened. She said that all three of the interviewers believed that I should have been offered the job: I was better qualified, more knowledgeable, more articulate and much more familiar with the city and the people the organization dealt with. She said the young man was very nice but he was most definitely second to me in appropriateness for the position.

She said they had given him the job because they felt he needed it more than I did, what with being new in town and having a baby on the way.

She hoped that things were going well for me and that I'd found a job. She wished me a Merry Christmas.

It wasn't the first time I'd faced discrimination in the workplace and it wouldn't be the last. It wasn't the first time — nor the last — that I faced sexual harassment (as in the job interview) ranging from mildly annoying to menacing. It's something women who go to work deal with every day. The incident I've just described took place in the 1980s, not the 1950s. Variations on it could happen today although things have changed enough that most men know it's wrong and women don't take that kind of behaviour for granted.

Second-wave feminism was still in its youth in the early '80s and women had not reached the point where much could be done in a case like this. Not that I would have anyway. I've never been good at confrontation.

When I watched the incomparable television show Mad Men, my initial reaction was like so many others: "Why would I watch this? I was there and I lived these experiences. I don't have to put myself through this."

But Mad Men had the clear advantage of knowing how things were going to turn out. It was not like looking in the mirror and that's why it was groundbreaking. It didn't just depict an era; it drew the lines and connected the dots from there and then to here and now.

I'll come back and tell you more specifically some of the things I liked about Mad Men.