By Lynne Pederson, ALF Senior Fellow, Class XXXVII––
When I became pregnant with my first child, I was working and attending school. I was determined not to let having children slow me down; I was determined to have it all. I would finish my degree, continue to work, and be the best mom I could be. As a result, I planned a leave of absence for six months after his birth. But with no family in the area, I could not bring myself to leave my newborn with strangers. As a result, we decided it was in the family’s best interest to take my leave of absence from working indefinitely without a plan or forethought. In the months that followed, I finished my degree and focused on being the best wife and mother I could be. A year later, I became pregnant with our second child. My planned six-month leave of absence ultimately lasted nearly six years.
I returned to work as an accountant for a local editing house. One day while feeling particularly overwhelmed juggling child care, household affairs, and work, out of exhaustion, I sat down in my office, placed my head in my hands, and cried. My boss came in and, in her attempt to console me, said, “…as a Black woman, it is your station in life to be underappreciated, overworked and underpaid.” As offended as I was by the comment, it interrupted my tears as my distress turned to resentment.
I am reminded of this comment whenever I encounter discriminatory treatment in the workplace. Am I being treated this way because I’m a woman? Or because I’m Black? Or both? Or is my treatment unrelated to my identity? This is the privilege unavailable to people of color: we don’t have the luxury of assuming our treatment is unrelated to our identity. After all, my white boss didn’t say “as a woman,” she specifically stated, “as a Black woman.” Is that how society sees us? As the group who is undeserving of reward or recognition for our contribution?
Black women have traditionally had to choose between civil rights and feminism — making equity for Black women about race and gender equality. Thus, in the commitment to equity in the workplace, it is essential in the pursuit of equality to integrate Intersectionality into your diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategy.
Intersectionality
For diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts to be truly impactful, we need to better understand and apply the concept of Intersectionality. A term coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a professor at both Columbia University and the University of California Los Angeles, the word describes how race, class, gender, and other individual characteristics intersect with one another and overlap.
Intersectionality is defined as a framework for conceptualizing a person, group of people, or social problem as impacted by a number of discriminations and disadvantages. In other words, Intersectionality asserts that people are often disadvantaged by multiple sources of oppression: their race, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, and other identity markers. Intersectionality recognizes that identity markers do not exist independently of each other and that each informs the others, often creating a complex convergence of oppression.
Women of color may face some of the same issues, but the stereotypes they battle are different. For African-American women, it’s often that of the angry Black woman. For Latinas, it can be that they are perceived as too emotional or too married to their families. Asians are often viewed as passive and acquiescent. This battle for representation is different for women affected by multiple discriminations.
“For diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts to be truly impactful, we need to better understand and apply the concept of Intersectionality.”
Representation
These different types of experience are significant when ensuring representation in our systems of power. The Supreme Court of the United States is made up of a Chief Justice and eight associate justices. After 179 years and 95 nominations, the first person of color, Thurgood Marshall, was nominated to the court by President Johnson in 1967. Fourteen years later, President Reagan would nominate the first woman, Sandra Day O’Connor. It would be another 28 years before a woman of color would be nominated when President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayer in 2009. In the 230-year history of the court, no African- American or Asian woman has ever been nominated for a seat on the court.
We see this lack of representation in our legislative branch of government as well. Since the U.S. Congress convened on March 4, 1789, There have been 12,348 individuals who have served as Representatives or Senators. Of the 12,348 individuals that have served, 366 have been women. Of that 366, 289 have been White, 47 African American, 20 Hispanic, and 12 Asian Pacific. Today, a record 127 women hold seats in the United States Congress, comprising 23.7% of the 535 members, despite the fact that women make up 51% of the U.S. population and women of color make up 38% of the female population. Of the 1,984 senators who have served, only five have been women of color — three Asian, two Black, and one Hispanic (Senator Harris is counted twice as she is multiracial: Asian and Black).
Minority women do not fare much better in the private sector. According to Bloomberg, women now hold 28% of all board seats at major corporations. Despite the changing demographics, fewer than 5% of board seats are held by women of color in the U.S. African American women saw an increase in seats of 26.2 percent in 2018, while Asian/Pacific Islander women saw an increase of 38.6 percent. While these are strong percentage increases, the raw numbers are still quite small.
Increasing Black representation, however, poses challenges that adding women may not. Most women elected to have professional connections with current board members. Most board members get their seats because of the network. Networks between White corporate leaders and potential Black directors are less well developed. Mary Winston, who sits on five boards, summed up the challenge succinctly when she stated, “…everyone knows a woman. In White America, I don’t know that everybody even knows a Black person.”
The most direct pipeline to a board seat is the C-suite, and because most top executives are White and male, boards historically tended to lack diversity. Of the Fortune 500’s CEOs, only 37 are women – and of the 37, only three are women of color, and none are Black or Hispanic. Moreover, according to Leanin.org, just 21% of C-suite executives are women, and 1% are Black women. In the absence of networks, advocacy, and sponsors, women of color are shut out of the opportunities for board seats and C-suites roles.
Consideration
Women of color are often left out of the conversation when considering who will be invited to join the circle of power. On August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified, enfranchising American women and declaring for the first time that women deserved all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. In other words, the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote. However, it would be another 45 years before Black women would be granted these rights.
While the 15th Amendment barred voting rights discrimination on the basis of race, the Amendment was limited to African-American men. Because the Amendment left the door open for the states to determine the specific qualifications for suffrage, a majority of Black voters were still denied the right to vote. And while the 19th and 15 amendments granted voting rights to the underrepresented, African American women remained excluded. It wasn’t until 1965, when President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, that equal access to the power of the vote was conferred upon Black women. This lack of consideration is still evidenced today in the pay gap between women.
Wage Inequality
When we think of wage inequality, we typically think about the wage gap between men and women. Rarely do we think about the wage gap between women. The Economic Policy Institute found that the pay gap between white women and women of color is the fastest-growing wage gap. A 2015 report showed that although higher-earning women and middle-aged women are at a greater disadvantage relative to their male counterparts, relative to White male wages, Black and Hispanic women are the most disadvantaged. Relative wage gaps are larger for high-wage White and Asian women, but Black and Hispanic women are paid least relative to White men.
A report titled The State of Black Women in Corporate America produced by Leanin.org found that, on average, White non-Hispanic women are paid 81.0 percent and Asian women 89.8 percent of what non-Hispanic White men make – but Black and Hispanic women don’t fare as well, at 65.3% and 57.6%, respectively. At this rate, White women will reach gender parity with men in 2059; Black women will reach parity in 2130.
But beyond pay gaps, who gets hired, heard, promoted, and supported add up to influential inequities. That same Leanin.org report also found that not only are Black women underrepresented in the leadership ranks of our nation’s companies but have less support at all stages of the corporate ladder.
Professional Development
A study by the Center for Women and Business shows that Black women have less access to training, have received less mentorship and sponsorship, and have less frequent opportunities to interact with senior leaders. Data (also) from a Leanin.org report shows that Black women are less likely than White women to say that their manager gave them a chance to manage other people or projects, and they are less likely to say they’ve had opportunities to showcase their work. These all result in fewer opportunities to develop their careers, compared to White women. One of the reasons for this disparity may be the finding that for every 100 men who receive a promotion to management positions, only 58 Black women are promoted.
Pamela Nonga Ngue, Senior Digital content specialist at Leanin.org, says that “the lack of support Black women receive at work can be linked to affinity bias, which is people having a favorable bias towards others who remind them of themselves or have similar experiences to them.” This means, she says, that a lot of senior leaders who are White men “might naturally be drawn to, or feel like they have more in common with, other White men and may not reach out to people of a different race or a different gender.” This bias, conscious or unconscious, is why understanding the experience of those different from ourselves is important.
There are several different ways in which racism and sexism play out in offices across the country. When we look at diversity at tech companies, the number of minority women employed may lead some to believe that the problem is not as serious as many have reported. For example, while data shows Asian women may be employed in higher numbers and are paid more on average as compared to Black or Hispanic women, there is a considerable gap between perceived company diversity and equity – because opportunities are concentrated on specific functions, such as engineering while leadership positions remain elusive.
Integration
Understanding intersectionality is crucial in recognizing how employees’ multiple identities define their experiences at work as well as the ways in which different types of discrimination overlap with one another. An intersectional lens serves as a reminder that efforts aimed to address injustice towards one group may end up perpetuating systems of inequities towards other groups. Consider the situation of a female employee who wears a hijab and works on a team of predominantly White colleagues. She is more likely than anyone else on her team to experience discrimination because of how her gender, religion, and ethnicity interconnect and overlap to place her in a unique minority. This evidences how diversity strategies aimed at women overlook additional discriminations she may experience. Recognizing the challenges employees face when seeking equal treatment or to belong makes integration of Intersectionality into your DEI strategy essential to meet the needs of all employees and to solve the broader systemic problem.
“Understanding intersectionality is crucial in recognizing how employees’ multiple identities define their experiences at work as well as the ways in which different types of discrimination overlap with one another.”
Engagement
Diversity, equity, and inclusion work is about paying attention to the experiences of marginalized groups and correcting collective biases and obstacles to ensure an equal playing field. For the anti-racist and inclusion conversation to occur and advance the interest of the marginalized, members of the privileged group must recognize that people experience the world differently based on their overlapping identity markers. Because the way we have been socialized continues to feed systems of oppression, we often feel it is rude to formally recognize others’ differences. We see this in how people are uncomfortable naming another person’s perceived race or asking for someone’s preferred pronouns. However, we must recognize these identities as a way to step beyond our assumptions that our experience is common. Once we recognize this difference, we can move away from language that seeks to define people by a singular identity.
When engaging in the open dialogue requisite for an effective DEI strategy, exploring the narratives of those with different interlocking identities includes educating others about the oppressions they face. When people share their experiences, and everyone takes the opportunity to listen, connection, empathy, and understanding are possible, and allyship is attainable. Trish Foster, CWB senior director and lead author of Intersectionality in the Workplace: Broadening the Lens of Inclusion, said: “By taking a broader approach to how we view others, we’re less likely to stereotype people or consider them as token representatives of a particular group. And we’re more likely to view coworkers as equal partners who deserve our respect.”
At the end of the day, integrating Intersectionality into your DEI strategy requires compassion, curiosity, and continual introspection. Successfully inclusive teams feel more engaged and know how to be more productive because they embrace the fact that everybody can bring something different to the table. Being mindful of Intersectionality in the workplace can, therefore, help retain and recruit top talent because it promotes respectful acknowledgment and inclusion of different and overlapping types of diversity. The data suggests that the most successful approach to attracting and retaining a diverse workforce creates a workplace that makes people feel they belong. Without this, no matter how much diversity you might achieve by the numbers, you may quickly find people feeling disconnected, disengaged, and prone to leaving your organization.
Allyship is action. And in recent months, we have witnessed allyship. Companies have committed to investments in minority-owned businesses, in organizations dedicated to equality, to the creation of internal roles focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. We even have our first minority woman nominated for the vice president of the U.S. We are making progress. Now is the time to direct our energy on making a difference in the day-to-day in the workplace.
Lynne Pederson (Class XXXVII) is an organizational leader focusing on diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging. Lynne graduated from University of California, Santa Barbara with a B.A. in political science; and from Golden Gate University, School of Law with a LLM with a concentration on labor and employment law.
Editor’s note: This essay is the second in a series of contributions by Lynne Pederson on race equity in the workplace. You can read the first in the series here.
