Fiona Hill Gave a Master Class in Calling Out a False Narrative at Work

Sometimes when you get the feeling you’re being left out of an important conversation, it’s because you are

Fiona Hill, the National Security Council’s former senior director for Europe and Russia, testifies before the House Intelligence Committee in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill November 21, 2019, in Washington, DC. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

When I was a summer associate at a big, white-shoe Manhattan law firm in my mid-20s, every summer associate was assigned a partner advisor. Mine was a big dog in banking, a subject in which I had no knowledge or interest. He took me for an obligatory lunch where we made strained conversation, and that was that.

I forgot about it until a few weeks later, when I saw the partner in the lobby at lunchtime with two other big dog partners, both male, and three of my fellow summer associates—also all male. They were guffawing and schmoozing in that big dog way, and I remember thinking: Oh, of course — I was the lunch he had to take, this is the lunch he wants to take. It was my first encounter with the glass ceiling, a barrier that would keep me from otherwise advancing as the men around me did.

It was a good thing I wanted to be a writer, not a lawyer. But even so, I can think of more than a few instances when I saw senior men in media gravitating toward my male colleagues for mentorship, and sponsorship, and even just fellowship. The fellowship part is harder to quantify, especially when you don’t have…