Law firm compared to escort service because of women
An Amsterdam legal firm made up entirely of women was compared to an escort service in a tweet by a well-known legal business publication based solely on a recent firm picture. The tweet reads “Marketing question: legal firm or escort service?” and was met with astonishment and disgust by men and women alike. The photo has five of the firm’s lawyers sitting on and around a couch surrounding the managing partner, Marielle Van Essen.
Van Essen said she could not understand why colleagues would imagine it’s OK to call them prostitutes. “We like to look good, that’s all. If other people want to wear a sloppy suit, they can. This is what we do.” On Twitter there are parodies popping up, with pictures of policewomen being compared to hookers and doctors to whores to drive the point home. Many people commenting also wonder if it was a case of the dumb, young white male intern trying to be funny, but the publication has refused to comment or rectify anything. Trashing lawyers because they’re women is someone’s idea of normal in 2015 and it shouldn’t be.
This would be a non-topic if it was a bunch of men. It is free publicity, but the firm has more work than they can handle with Van Essen herself stuck at home with the flu as I write this.
(Link: www.ad.nl, Photo of wilted tulip by Graham Keen, some rights reserved)
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