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Dr. Tina Opie, author of “Shared Sisterhood: How to Take Collective Action For Racial and Gender Equity At Work”, shares valuable insight on how to overcome the race and gender based discrimination in the workforce. She acknowledges that while all women share the similar characteristic of being women, they are from different racio-ethnic backgrounds, affecting the way they are treated by employees and organizations as a whole. Her book focuses on the relationship between White and Black women, the institutional barriers between them, and how to best form relationships using what she calls the “Dig, Bridge and Collective Action” framework.
Dr. Opie illustrates a couple of roots to this lack of connection between women of different races. One of them being having a color-blind approach to society. While often many say the best way to prevent biases from forming is having a a “color-blind” approach to race, this mindset often prevents us from addressing the lack of diversity and inclusionary policies in the workforce. Instead of ignoring race, we should acknowledge that our society doesn’t operate on a color blind level, but rather that racial and ethnic discrimination is at the heart of systemic inequalities.
The second root of this problem is what Dr. Opie calls the “not here” approach. The “not here” viewpoint is where large corporations often redirect blame, claiming their lack of diversity is a result of outside factors. While various companies have been trying to make their workplaces more inclusive, most have not actually understood how to actually incorporate those ideals. Hence, women of color often feel out of place, alienated and are more susceptible to lower pay rates. While it would be ideal for every corporation to suddenly restructure the discriminatory regulations that plague them on an institutional level, its unsurprising that many of them might not even be close to this benchmark. However, the goal here is not to claim the problems of diversity and inclusion aren’t present, but rather focus on the ways those issues can be resolved.
It’s important to understand that in order to fully address the problem of racial disparities between women in the workplace, we need to first accept them to be true. Companies have to put diversity at a high standard, as if the leadership lacks diversity, employees follow that trend. For instance, in 2022, just in law, Black and LatinX women each represented less than 1% of all partners. The first step to maximizing equity is making sure that leadership is both diverse and equitable to all racio-ethnic categories. Secondly, a proper workplace environment must be fulfilled. This includes making sure both hiring and promotions are taking into account racial backgrounds and allotting slots equitably. Much work needs to be done in bridging not only the gender gap, but also the racioethnic gap between women, but with the proper programs and mindset in place, it is possible.
