Mahdis Habibinia, a Content Editor with the Globe and Mail, is photographed on June 22, 2022.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail
This is the weekly Amplify newsletter, where you can be inspired and challenged by the voices, opinions and insights of women at The Globe and Mail.
Mahdis Habibinia is a content editor at The Globe and Mail.
Last year around this time, I was entering the first year of my master’s degree in journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson). I signed up for a mentorship program and was paired with a CTV news anchor in Saskatchewan, a strong and confident woman I’ve often turned to for advice.
I was weighing broadcast news as a possible career path so I asked her, “How much importance is still placed on looks, beyond professional expectations?” I know little in the ways of makeup, anti-aging serums and anti-wrinkle creams, and I was concerned that might render me a less-than-qualified candidate (I was worrying about this at 24, by the way).
My mentor responded rather optimistically, saying she believes the industry is evolving. “Look at Lisa LaFlamme,” she said, referencing the fiftysomething CTV National News anchor, who had decided to grow out her grey hair during the pandemic.
A year later and Ms. LaFlamme’s unceremonious dismissal not only sparked outrage across the country, but shrouded many young female journalists, including myself, with dispiritedness. Though I had decided anchoring likely isn’t for me long before the news broke, I still felt defeated in a race I hadn’t even begun. How am I, or any other woman, supposed to dream big when corporations tell us we shouldn’t aim too high?
I’m entering my second and final year of graduate studies in a couple of weeks and, in a reflective back-to-school state, I asked myself for the first time: “How badly do you want all of this? Not just your degree, but the level of success you aim to achieve?”
Journalism classes are often predominantly made up of females, but in the actual industry, the percentage of women in senior-level positions is terrifyingly low around the world.
I often told myself during first year that the foundational principles for success and breaking glass ceilings were simple: Work hard, persevere in the face of adversity, and be consistent because you’re just a number until you prove you’re an asset. But Bell Media’s handling of the LaFlamme situation and its choice of “damage control” revealed a hidden caveat: “Once you’ve done all that, you’re still expendable.”
Ms. LaFlamme’s firing wasn’t objective by any stretch of the imagination. It showed female journalists starting out just how disposable any of us can be no matter how much heart and soul we put into our work. If a strong, seasoned journalist can be treated that way over her hair colour, if sexism and ageism are alive and well, what other reasons can I be axed for? (Anyone who knows me will tell you I am neither a quiet nor passive person.)
After the initial shock passed, I was enlightened by the outpouring of anger across the country, from a spectrum of genders: Just as prejudice is alive and well, solidarity seems to be equally thriving – if not more.
Now, I’m beginning to change how I perceive my fears and use them for motivation – for my day-to-day sanity and for the little girl in me who wants to lead a newsroom one day and inspire other women. Seeing the reactions to Ms. LaFlamme’s termination makes me hope that I, too, can reach that level of greatness, so that if I am ever unceremoniously fired I will receive a similar level of support. It is a cynical outlook for sure, and it saddens me that this is the reality in which I have to work and dream, but it’s the cards I’ve been dealt.
What helps mitigate the negativity is looking to places doing it right. When I started at The Globe, the number of women in senior positions made me feel like a kid again, inspired by figures who I want to be like “when I grow up.” I was taken by the culture and it motivated me to work harder. I was reminded of a saying: Take care of your employees, and they’ll take care of your business.
Other things that give me hope: the professors (male and female) who encourage your dreams; the assignment editors who take a chance on you on your first day; the (male) editor-in-chiefs who take the time to discuss how you can become a leader in the newsroom one day; the executive editors making it their goal to recruit and retain women. But, most importantly, it’s seeing men respect females even after those women move into leadership positions.
And that’s what I’ll be holding on to as I finish my degree, because I’ll be damned if Bell Media’s message to female journalists, unintended or otherwise, actually takes root.
What else we’re thinking about:
Part of having a hyphenated identity as an Iranian-Canadian is that you get the best of two cultures. So for the past year I’ve been trying my hand at a few Persian recipes I love to eat but can never get to taste just like my mom’s or grandma’s. A few of my favourites are ghormeh sabzi, a rice-based dish topped with a beef-and-kidney-bean stew loaded with fresh herbs; loobia polo, a mixed-rice recipe with green beans, tomatoes and ground beef (my family likes to add a bit of cinnamon to the rice and steam it); and joojeh (chicken) kabab, which is usually marinated in saffron and cooked on a charcoal grill before being served with rice, butter and sumac.
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