Starting your career while the world crumbles around you
/Six months ago, I had my undergraduate degree in hand even as a pandemic had the world in its iron grip. Like millions of other students around the world, I had to defer my plans of continuing with my higher studies. It is difficult to live through a global health crisis in itself, and finding work in the midst of one is a herculean feat altogether. I went through a continuous cycle of scouring for calls for applications and writing endless cover letters trying to prove my worth and abilities. Emails and applications went unacknowledged. I felt defeated time and time again but I resolved to keep trying. Even at a time when vacancies plummeted and the job market shrank, I felt pressured to keep up the rat-race and questioned myself for not doing enough even when I was completely exhausted. In one such instance, I was offered a position by a “reputable” think tank and left in the dark for a long time before receiving an email stating that they had rescinded the offer on the eve of my starting date. There was no apology and no explanation, and the unilateral decision did not even attempt to engage in a conversation with me.
Facing structural barriers
Through this past year, as I worked on building my resume, each rejection had me questioning my accomplishments and employability. Each unanswered email came with a heavy set of insecurities and fears as well as anger at the unchanging system. I saw organisations prioritise students who study in or graduated from elite/top-tier institutions, without giving a fair chance to equally qualified and skilled candidates from “lower-ranked” institutions. I witnessed blatant gatekeeping as organisations privileged candidates with connections or splendid references from influential folks. It truly felt like a gordian knot situation when the helplessness and powerlessness kicked in and made me realise that this is just the way the world works. The organisational structure across the think-tank space is almost always patriarchal, casteist, and dominated by men with immense and privilege and power who not only gatekeep who gets access to opportunities but also the knowledge and discourse being produced.
There is also a huge bridge between the kind of opportunities available to and accessible by women of colour and women from the global south and women from the global north. Even as International Relations and Foreign Policy remain male-dominated fields, the opportunities available to and accessible by the former is an even smaller circle. Most of the opportunities are concentrated in the west, and are positions created by the west for the west, suited to the skillsets and experiences of western candidates. Even international organisations with enormous funding, social capital and global reach like the UN and Vital Voices only offer unpaid internships, which disproportionately impact candidates from developing countries.
Where change needs to happen
While these glass ceilings and structural barriers cannot be dismantled overnight, it is high time we introspect on how existing hierarchies and power structures have failed us, especially young graduates who are brimming with potential, ideas and optimism. Going forward, I hope employers go easy on candidates for having gaps in their resume. In the midst of lockdowns, employers should take into consideration increased responsibilities at home, care work and challenges to mental health. It is inhuman to expect candidates, especially the ones who are most affected by the pandemic or coming from countries with strict lockdowns, to be able to skill themselves and be as productive as they could be in normal circumstances. I also wish to see a world in which we do away completely with unpaid internships which give unfair advantage to those candidates who can afford to work without pay, and exploit people’s skill with promises of intangible benefits such as ‘exposure’.
A beacon of hope
After that arduous journey of looking for work in the established circles, I turned to my feminist network, where I found the Gender Security Project. While feminist mutual aid and solidarity have always had my back, we shouldn’t have to settle for it to be the alternative to what we think is the ‘mainstream’. At the Gender Security Project, our research spotlights the global south and aims to bring the lived experiences, voices, histories and legacies from the margins to the center. I am extremely privileged and lucky to not just have found a job in the midst of pandemic, but to have found a job I genuinely love, work that plays its own small part in dismantling structural and systemic violence and a mentor who is empathetic and compassionate. I look forward to a future where this is the norm for everyone alike and not just a privilege for the few lucky nor exclusive to feminist organisations.
Vaishnavi Pallapothu works with the Gender Security Project, an independent feminist think-tank based in Chennai. Her writing and research work centres around the themes of feminist foreign policy, the Women, Peace and Security agenda, as well as critical international relations.