As a female young adult, I’ve heard a lot about the gender pay gap throughout my life. What I don’t hear about nearly as often is the larger struggle that women of color face when it comes to careers. This is likely due to the fact that I’m white and regrettably hear less about the issues that don’t directly affect me, but this is also likely because as a society we generally don’t discuss some of our most basic problems enough. I wanted to educate myself about what’s happening and why it’s happening so that I (and other uninformed folks) can start thinking about how to support minority women specifically, and promote diversity within America’s top career fields and high-paying majors.
So, what IS the problem?
Simply put, minority women are greatly underrepresented in areas like politics, medicine, technology, and corporate America. Although slow progress is occurring in a number of fields, notably in television, we must recognize that more progress is necessary. To get specific, the United States is not even in the top 100 countries in terms of female representation in public office when 20 years ago we used to be nearly in the top 50. Elections during the 2016 campaign were relatively progressive in terms of wins for black women. However, let’s not forget that only 11 black women have held statewide executive offices ever, and no black woman has yet been elected governor. The technology industry has, for a long time, been known to be largely made up of Caucasian and Asian men. Data from January of this year says that Google’s tech staff is 1% Black, 3% Hispanic, and 20% female. These numbers are an increase for Google from previous years, but are still greatly disproportionate in terms of the American population. This is a problem because arguably all fields, namely STEM and politics, would benefit from diversity and a wider range of perspectives.
In 2015, a study from the University of California Hastings found that 93% of white women and 100% of women of color who were surveyed and interviewed experienced gender bias in STEM fields. Out of hundreds, literally every single woman of color faced bias in the work field. Some specific examples of reported biases include: “Latinas and Black women [were] regularly mistaken as janitors,” “Asian-American women felt more pressure to act demure and passive,” and Latinas “risk being seen as ‘angry’ or ‘too emotional'” when asserting themselves. It is a problem when women of color feel as if they must choose careers in which they feel they will face the least amount of stereotyping and discrimination rather than careers in which their skill set can be most utilized or they can reach the highest level of success.
But who’s to blame?
The way sexism and racism play a role in this conversation is not so surface level. This has less to do with employers being deliberately racist and more to do with how society looks at women and race on a broader and deeper scale. It would be too easy to say that all employers are discriminative or that white men get positions handed to them, because it ignores the fact that there is also a lack of minority women applying in certain fields and majors to begin with. The majority of Americans are not less likely to vote in politics for someone based on race or gender (although I still don’t want to talk about last year’s popular vote), yet women [of color] are less likely to run for office because of societal pressures pertaining to their gender and ethnic identity.
It would also be too easy, and flat out wrong, to suggest that minority women simply aren’t willing to work as hard as men to succeed in higher-paying majors and career fields. This idea ignores the fact that minority women are faced with more bias, pressure, and criticism. Personally, I would consider taking a basket-weaving class over a computer science course if it meant deciding between a place where I’m seen as an equal, versus a place where I must prove myself as an equal over, and over, and over again.
I should disclaim here that classroom and work settings obviously vary by school and company, but my point is this: our country is stuck in a cycle built upon stereotypes, biases, and differences in upbringing. Stepping out of the cycle for some women of color might at first mean working harder than the average employee, dealing with more discrimination than they might elsewhere, and, potentially, still earning less than their white male counterpart. It is tempting to point fingers at others without first taking a look at yourself.
Where do we go from here?
Admittedly, I don’t have all the answers, but I believe that transforming society begins with transforming oneself, which is why I began learning more about the issue. I believe that all forms of oppression are interconnected as we are all one human race. We all ought to fight these forms collectively. Personally, this means to stop fighting solely for my own cause, and instead fight for all who struggle unfairly. A lot of stereotypes are perpetuated at a young age when our parents teach us in subtleties the qualities we’re assumed to identify with before we have a chance to decide the kind of person we want to be. We are taught what it means to be female, male, White, Black, Latinx, Asian, and so on often in our own households. It’s up to us to break the stereotypes, to actively and consistently ask ourselves why we treat each other the way that we do, to learn by asking questions instead of assuming, to have the courage to tell others when they are treating ourselves or others unfairly, and to have the courage to go after what we truly want even if it means breaking down barriers along the way.