Black Women in Corporate America Still Plagued by Double Standards
By: Tonyaa Weathersbee
When I was interviewing for a reporter’s job at my newspaper 20 years ago, one editor decided he needed two days to size me up. But unlike most of the editors, who wanted to know about my experience and my ambitions, this one seemed more fixated on my propensity to comply rather than perform.
He wanted to know, among other things, if I had ever refused to do an assignment that I didn’t like, and whether I would blame racism if I were turned down for a plumb assignment.
Of course, I told him that he’d have to be more specific about the circumstances; that if I believed race was the reason, I’d say so -- and I’d be sure to explain why I felt that way. I don’t believe he liked that answer because amazingly another editor, a white woman, came behind him and essentially asked me the same question.
She got the same answer.
Still, I got the job. But I didn’t get over the experience -- because it taught me a lot about what it means to be black in a white-dominated corporate world. What it taught me was that, for the most part, getting in the door, fitting in and moving up means not just showing your skills, but downplaying traits such as outspokenness that would be regarded as natural in white men. It clued me in on the fact that if I spoke up about something, I risked being tainted as being difficult or radical, while white guys would merely be seen as being assertive or aggressive. Showed me that what some employers see as strength in white men, they see as liability in black women.
And it seems things haven’t changed that much in two decades.
Economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett recently surveyed more than 1,600 minority professionals for a study in November’s Harvard Business Review. She and renowned Afro-American Studies professor Cornel West reviewed the responses, and found that in the corporate world, even the most skilled minorities and women are often shackled by cultural differences and double standards.
Hewlett told The Christian Science Monitor, which recently published a story about her findings, that 40 years ago, it was easy to see prejudice. “People wore it on their sleeve and enshrined it in the law,” she said.
“Today it’s much more subtle, but it’s pervasive,” Hewlett said. “Whether it’s a tone of voice or hairstyle or accent, the cumulative impact can be brutal and can derail a career.”
Among other things, Hewlett found that more than 40 percent of the minority professional women she surveyed felt excluded and constrained by the need to blend into a corporate culture dominated by white men, and a third of minority women felt their speaking style limited them -- with black women believing that their propensity to speak loudly made them seem too threatening.
And in many cases, even when a black woman does speak up, what they say is ignored or given short shift -- until a white man says it.
“If a woman of color speaks up to make her point, it will just plop,” Ella Bell, an associate professor of business at Dartmouth, told the Monitor. “A white male will pick it up, and it’s all bells and whistles.”
I can relate.
Of course, Hewlett’s findings aren’t particularly shocking. But the fact that they aren’t ought to be disturbing to most of us. Because what it all says is that while many of us have overcome barriers to getting into the door -- thanks to affirmative action and diversity efforts -- our culture and misperceptions about it still stands in the way of us moving up. What it says is that while we’ve moved into the era where many corporations have embraced the idea of having minorities and women in the room or in key positions, it’s still a struggle to move beyond that without acquiescing to invisibility or selling out altogether.
So now, here’s our new struggle -- to make corporations understand that they’ve got to see us as more than just a photo for a brochure, but as a force for change. To commit ourselves to excellence as we confront the hidden biases that exist.
And to be fearless about keeping it real as we go.
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Wednesday, November 2nd 2005 at 9:48AM
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