Glancing through the job section and seeing the description for a legal assistant seemed normal and standard until one would read through the whole thing and see how sexist it actually turns out to be. When the advert itself stated they needed someone who can assist in preparing legal documentation for litigation and coordinating court dates and cases amongst the staff at the firm, which is fine but then when one scrolls down it states that the applicant to this job must be female and good looking.
“must be female and Good Looking” this phrase sent the internet into a frenzy of discrimination and netizens caught on to this and started slamming the company that placed the advertisement asking questions such as “Are you looking for a legal assistant or a sugar baby?,”
This question caught the eye and attention of many one of which included Malaysian journalist Tashny Sukumaran who then proceeded to repost the screenshot of the question on Twitter where it got retweeted over 3000 times.
There were many questions asked on the internet regarding this post. Firstly there was the slamming of the company for being discriminatory and sexist as they preferred one gender over the other and to add insult to this it was that the female also had to be good looking which also boiled down to the fact that if you were pretty enough by their standards you got the job. There was also question checking on the authenticity of the firm as to if it was an actual law firm or was it a modeling firm of some sort.
If all of this was not enough, the publication of the advert just happened to be on International Women’s Day which only added more fuel to a already raging fire. Following this episode the law firm behind the advert took it down as fast as they put it up. They even came out with a new one and apologized for the gross mistake made on their part stating that it was a genuine and honest mistake and that it was published without the approval of their partner.
