Opinion
My Library Photo Shoot Was Revealing. So Was the Reaction.
I staged a photo shoot in the law school library to satisfy a petty romantic agenda. The reaction showed what too many of us still think a Harvard Law student should look like.
Picture me: sprawled across the carpeted library floor, sandwiched between the hallowed shelves of the Massachusetts Reports and the New York Digest. Slumped in a plush leather chair, legs dangling wearily over its arm, the exhaustion of hours spent reading case law. Dressed in a mini skirt, knee-high stockings, and black stilettos, one heel carefully positioned atop a stack of venerable legal texts, a red rotary phone pressed against my ear.
I wish I could tell you that my office-siren-themed photo shoot in the Harvard Law School Library was an elaborate feminist intervention to combat the gendered dimensions of respectability norms in the legal profession. But I’m sorry to admit that my motivation was much less noble, and much more human: I did it simply to make a man jealous.
While I still don’t know if my Gatsby-style attempt to grab that particular man’s attention worked, what began as a petty act of romantic spite has become an unexpected case study in how some in our community pick and choose when their principles apply.
HLS students spend every day in classrooms discussing and debating freedom of expression, bodily autonomy, sexual liberation, and equality. We study the legal theories underlying these principles and defend them fiercely — in academic exercises. And even beyond the classroom, it can feel easy to champion female sexuality and agency when the woman in question exists outside our own community.
But how do we actually apply these principles when they’re tested close to home — say, by a Harvard Law student in the Harvard Law library? Suddenly, many of the same classmates who would zealously advocate for my legal right to engage in this sort of peaceful act of self-expression reach for moral reasons for why I should not.
Online, the response to my shoot was largely warm. Not a single HLS student commented on the post, positively or negatively. But in the hallways, I’m told, criticism ran rampant: my shoot was “unprofessional,” “offensive,” a form of “soft pornography.” Never mind that I called the library staff several times beforehand, scheduled the shoot for 8 a.m. on Labor Day, ensured no students were in the shot, and wore headphones while filming Instagram Reels to avoid disturbing anyone. I also informed the Dean of Students Office afterward, just to cover all my bases.
Nevertheless, my act was viewed as an offense — not against any rule in the Handbook of Academic Policies, but against the prestige of Harvard as an Ivy League institution, the ethics of professional legal spaces, and the standards governing what a legitimate lawyer looks like. More than anything, the response to my photo shoot revealed a reflexive, and frustrating, adherence to traditional respectability norms.
The irony is that many students, and the school alike, simultaneously celebrate one of Harvard Law School’s most famous fictional graduates, Elle Woods. Recall the Legally Blonde scene where the admissions committee is left jaw-dropped by Elle’s unconventional yet extraordinarily impressive video essay, filmed in a bubbling jacuzzi while wearing an itty-bitty hot pink sequin bikini. Even Dean John Goldberg himself referenced Elle in his 2026 Commencement address, applauding the “courageous efforts of a plucky underdog.” But while fictional Harvard Law students who break gendered respectability norms seemingly win the school’s applause, it becomes offensive and tasteless when done by a real one.
Ultimately, I don’t have to prove to anyone that my photo shoot was morally acceptable or a feminist endeavor. I admit, I did it to cater to the male gaze — albeit one particular male’s gaze. My motivations were messy, vain, and thoroughly human. I’m an anxiously attached girly who was just trying to get over a man. A lot of us have been there.
Still, the shoot made me feel incredibly empowered. I haven’t felt so confident in months. And that’s the larger point: a woman’s autonomy should never depend on whether her choices satisfy someone else’s preferred theory of empowerment. Perhaps the most revealing thing about my photo shoot isn’t the amount of skin I was showing or how I posed among the shelves of legal scholarship; it’s what too many of us still think a Harvard Law student should look like.