Women at Work - Sisterhood Is Critical to Racial Justice

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

To push for a racially just workplace, white women must put in the effort to understand black women’s experiences. We talk about what has historically driven women of different races apart at work and about how we can stick together and support one another. Guests: Ella Bell Smith, Stella Nkomo, Tina Opie, and Verónica Rabelo. Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.

Over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at Work. I've been reflecting on my responsibility as a white woman to fight racism in my community and in the places I work and to continue to educate myself. I've also been hearing from Black women that they've been telling us how to be anti-racist for years, and they have. So as I've been looking for tools, two episodes from season two of our show came to mind. Sisterhood is scarce and sisterhood is power. In those episodes, we saw that workplace sisterhood is too rare and that we women hold ourselves back when we let race and other differences divide us. In them, we also recognize that we will be a stronger force against both sexism and racism at work if we know and trust each other.

I wasn't yet a host on the show then, but I was a big fan. As a listener, I found the stories and research about the relationships between white women and black women, both in the past and still today, eye-opening. I also remember thinking to myself, we have a lot to do. That includes, as our guests told us on these episodes, listening to, learning about, and advocating for black women at work, actions that are critical to racial justice. Which is why we're revisiting the interviews with four women committed to fostering sisterhood in the workplace. I did these interviews in 2018 with our former co-hosts,

Nicole Torres and Sarah Green Carmichael. We hope that in listening, white women in particular will more clearly see their role in fighting systemic racism and commit to taking action. You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Amy Bernstein. I'm Sarah Green Carmichael. And I'm Nicole Torres. This episode is the first of a two-part conversation about sisterhood and how we still have a ways to go when it comes to supporting one another. You know, we keep saying women. Well, no group of women are monolithic. Everybody has a different experience. That's Ella Bell Smith. She's a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Just to put it bluntly, because I see it in South Africa,

white male power would prefer to deal with a white woman than to deal with a black woman. That's Stella Nkomal. She's a professor at the University of Pretoria. Back in the mid-1990s, Ella and Stella plunged into an eight-year research project. They wanted to learn about the lives and career struggles of Black and white women who had made it in corporate America, how they got there, and what they experienced in the 1970s and 80s as the first wave of female managers. They surveyed over 800 women and did in-depth interviews with 120. They asked the women they interviewed about their childhood with questions like, what supports were there for you in high school? What obstacles? They talked to them about their

early adulthood, asking what kinds of personal sacrifices have you had to make to get to where you are today? They also interviewed them about their relationships with others. They asked black women, would you say that you are particularly close to any of the white women colleagues in your company? And they asked white women the reverse. Ella and Stella turned the stories the women told them into a book called Our Separate Ways. Harvard Business School Press published it in 2001, and it's become a classic on intersectionality. Lo and behold, the same stories that we told, what, how long ago now? 20 years, maybe? Are still alive and well and kicking, but with a whole new group of women. Which is why we wanted to talk to them, to hear the chapter of women's history they documented back then, and to hear how gender, race, and social class still affect women's work relationships and experiences today.

Ella Bell Smith and Stella Nkomo, welcome. What made you want to study how black women and white women relate in the corporation? What were you seeing out there in the world? Two reasons. In the 80s, in the 70s, after the women's movement, there were very few women in corporate America. And people were just beginning to write about that experience. But what Ella and I noticed from different vantage points was that people were talking about women in management, but they weren't talking about black women or women of color. Everything that was being written was primarily about white women, and it was as if black women didn't exist or they weren't there. So one issue was the invisibility of black women in these discussions and thinking about the experiences of women

in management and leadership positions in corporate America. And then, of course, our own personal experience. We knew what we were experiencing. So we began to think, what are other women experiencing? How come their stories are not being told? Before we dive sort of into the research in further detail, I want to just back up and ask a little bit about sort of the high-level findings. You know, if you had to kind of summarize the high level findings of this work, what are sort of the main points that you found? For me, the power of class. One story from the black community perspective was that you could take a poor girl. I mean, a very poor girl who grew up in the rural South. And while she didn't have food on the table, her mother was sharecropping all day. She was out in the fields working too,

or cleaning white folks' kitchens to help family out, to put food on the table. She didn't have a sense of shame. She had a principal that, you know, was behind her. She had teachers. She had ministers. She still had a sense of community. She still had a sense of self-worth. She still had a sense of purpose. You take that same situation for a poor white female growing up in a rural area. And she's shamed. Nobody reaches out to her. The principal in her high school tells her, you know, you need to get a job. She's valedictorian of her class. But the principal tells her, you know, you don't have the money. She doesn't have food to eat at lunchtime. So she goes in the library and she reads. Her story is one of shame. Her

story is one of humiliation. Her story is one of, I'm going to pull myself up by my bootstraps all by myself. So you begin to see what poverty does in a woman's life. You begin to see the power of class. That to me was extraordinarily powerful. Yeah, I think that in terms of moving from the childhoods, one of the things that struck me and even looking back a little bit in thinking about this conversation today was how the white women managers at that time seemed to be totally oblivious to the structural barriers and the political climate and seeing the organization as a place based on merit. That was striking that if I work hard, I'll be okay in this environment. So this sense that it was a level playing field and all they had to do was to work hard. And so if you go back to their childhoods, they had much less socialization or education from their families that look, your gender is

going to be treated differently. And the black women were buffered from that because they were told by their families, yes, you can be anything you want to be, but you're going to face racism. You're going to be treated differently. So you need to prepare yourself for this. And this became an ongoing difference between the women in terms of how they responded to the corporate environment. So the black women were much more willing to speak out when they saw injustice. They were able to label things as discrimination, whereas the white women were more like, well, it's just the way a corporation is. You'll have to learn how to fit in with that. And I think that's still one of the problems

because one of the strategies that you hear now from that very popular book, lean in, that women need to do more to fit in and lean in and show up and work hard. I think that kind of idea about how do I become successful was very striking to me. And it's interesting to me that we're still hearing some of that in the advice that's given to women today. So what did you want to happen as a result of your research and our separate ways? What was your goal? I think we had a lot. That's a good question. I think we had a lot of goals, a lot of dreams,

a lot of dreams and a lot of goals. So one goal obviously was to make people aware that to understand the experience of women in management, you had to look both at race and gender. You couldn't just talk about gender. I think another goal was that hopefully in the end that this would allow women themselves, particularly white women, to begin to understand that their experiences are not defining the gender issue alone, and that this would get women to become aware of each other and how we differ, depending on our context, depending on our ethnicity and our race, our class. So to raise the awareness of women and maybe that somehow would help to allow women to become allies in the workplace. And I think the last thing was to get white men who were in power and corporations to begin to really make a commitment to empowering women and to understand that they were part of the problem. Those were some of the hopes.

I'm not sure any of that has happened, but that was the dream. So how did women react to your findings? Oh boy, I'll take that one. Okay. That was, that was, that was fun. The white women, all these questions about, you know, how did you do this research and how did you analyze this data and how did you reach this conclusion? And and who validated the data for you? I'm not saying that all white women responded like that because other white women read the book and took it to heart in a very powerful, powerful way. So you'd walk in a room and if a white woman had read the book, she'd come and she'd hug me, you know, just like, oh, you know, you made me realize things that I never thought about. females. But for the black females, it was almost an amen because somebody had finally seen them. Somebody had finally recognized how their journey was different in the corporate world, how their

journey was different on how they got to the corporate world. And that was important because these stories were not told and how they were experiencing racism, daily doses of racism. There was one story that just just I don't think I'll I'll ever forget this story. African-American woman in the sales department and she had just beat everybody out. She had just had a stellar year and they had the company had their little celebration or off-site retreat. And you know, it's Friday night, so everybody's at the bar. And you know, she's gotten the award. She's finally, she nailed it. And she's with her colleagues. She's the only black female in her group. She's the only female in her group. One of her male white male colleagues looked at her and said, yeah, you had a you had a great year. You're a lucky little black bitch, aren't you?

What? Whoa. And it really happened. You know, no white female had a comparable story. And I'm not saying that white females don't have this story. The thing that makes the story so alarming to me is that nobody came to her defense. Nobody stood up for her. Nobody said, you know, like, you're way out of line. How could you say that? She was left out there to defend for herself. What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform.

With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash womenatwork. That's netsuite.com slash womenatwork. Hey, listeners, if you want to hear from more leaders to help you answer questions like, Thank you. Madhupe Akanola. The show features TED Talks about everything from setting smart goals to the latest on DEI in business, followed up with a mini lesson from Madhupe on how to apply these lessons in your own life. Listen to TED Business wherever you get your podcasts. So we know that women face a glass ceiling as they try to advance in their careers. But you say black women face the additional barrier of a concrete wall. What do you see?

What are you talking about there? Okay. We came up with the concept of concrete wall because of the fact glass you can shatter. So much had been written about the glass ceiling in terms of women's advancement in the corporate world and the shattering of it. And what would it take to shatter it? You know, having a good sponsor, having job visibility, getting the right assignment, coming in and really proving yourself as a team player and having the right relationships could hopefully shatter the glass ceiling. Concrete, you can't shatter concrete. You can't see what's on the other side. Concrete,

you either have to dig under or find a way to climb over or find a way to get around it. And if you don't have the right sponsorship, if you don't have good allies, if you don't have the opportunity, you're not seen. That's the other thing. At least with glass, the other side can see. Concrete, nobody can see you. You're an unknown entity and you're invisible in terms of the worth and the contributions and the innovation that you can bring to the table. One woman said it this way, I've been here for many years, but I feel like a guest in someone

else's house. That she was never able to shake off that feeling of exclusion. And, you know, I can perform, but nobody is seeing it. I can't build relationships because nobody really is paying any attention to me. You're trapped. You can't move either way. And what we found in the research was that the way that black women and others have written about this, the way they do advance oftentimes is to leave the company. They stay in the company much more longer to get the visibility. But the way that they get to advance is by going to another company.

Then they can get locked in that same concrete wall reality again. The other thing that's very interesting is that corporations don't do a good job of storytelling. They don't do a good job. Some of them are beginning to, but they definitely don't talk about who was there before you, your historical legacy. So these women are in companies where there have been other senior black women in the past, but because the pipelines are so weak, particularly for women of color, what you see is that they still think they're the very first ones. They don't recognize that, you know, you're about third generation in the corporate reality, number one. Number two, you have a legacy to stand

on. You belong. Number three, what's the syndrome that everybody talks about that you think you're not good enough in and you believe it? Imposter. Imposter syndrome. Thank you. You know, they're walking around, well, I have the imposter syndrome. And the reality is, no, your corporation hasn't invited you in. You might have some of the imposter syndrome. But the other thing is, you have not been given the green tag, the go tag, if you will, to succeed. You're not asking this, but I think that's why allies are important, particularly among women, because white women get to see a broader picture. And if they would share that broader picture, their contacts, the vision, the innovation that's going on, what's hot, what's going on in the company on the cultural level, on the political level, on the strategic level, I know it would help black women and other women of color to advance more quickly. I mean, there's part of a need for a white woman when she is in a position of power in her company to say, where are the other women who don't look like me?

Can I add another graphic about that concrete wall, Ella? The other graphic is this, and we heard in our own careers. When a person decides to sponsor someone in an organization, they see it as a risk factor for themselves because if I sponsor you, I need you to be successful. And I think white men and some white women are reluctant to go out on a limb for a black person. I heard it in my doctoral career after I finished my doctorate and many years later, one of the people who had decided to let me come in said, we really didn't think you would do it. We really didn't think you'd ever get your PhD. And I think the idea that if I sponsor this black woman, she may not make it. We're seen as a problem. People question your competence. We heard this from the women.

You know, I remember the one woman who said, you know, here I am, Chicago MBA, previous experience, and I can see people are reluctant to think that I can do the job. So presume to be incompetent at a very deep level based on your race and your gender being inferior. And so no one wants to sponsor a person like that. And I think a greater opportunity in terms of the glass ceiling, that white people are not assumed to be inferior because of their race. And I need to say that. This white supremacy is an idea that hasn't gone away. And not everybody says it as explicitly, but the idea that this black person, this black woman, I'm not sure that she really

is competent. And I'm not prepared to go out and take a risk on her. And if there's another opportunity to take a white woman, I'd rather bet on her. That may be harsh, but that's something to think about. And I think it happens more often than we want to say it. I'd like to go back to the question of white women's obliviousness. And one of the ways that that really stood out to me in the national survey that you conducted for this project was that 90% of the black women said they had conflicts at work with white women, but only 4% of the white women said they had conflicts with black women. And I'm curious to know what you made of that. Well, I think there's two things that make of it. Well, that tells you right then and there that very difference in perception, but part of it

maybe is the fact that more of the black women were likely to be supervised or had white women. But I also think that the white women would have portrayed themselves. This is my sense of their ability to get along with black women. It's sort of like over inflating their relationship with black women when there really was no relationship for the most part. There was no camaraderie. So most of the time, as some of the black women said, they were ignored by the white women. The white women didn't reach out to them. So we think a lot of it was just a non-existent relationship or affinity.

But some of it was just a non-existent relationship or affinity but some of it is this unfortunate thing and I've had that in my own professional experience where white women that I may know as an acquaintance and I'll hear from somebody else they'll say oh I'm very close to Stella I know her very well and that's not. So they sometimes claiming relationships that are not really there as a sign to say that, look at me, I'm not racist. It's sort of like that thing, some of my best friends are black. And it's a very superficial thing, where you haven't really engaged me at all, but you claim this relationship with me. That was my take on it. The other thing that is interesting, and we see this even today, the affinity groups, you have the women affinity

group, and then you have the ethnic affinity groups. So you can often go into a corporation and, you know, you go into the women's affinity group. And I just had this experience last year. And it's nothing but white women sitting around the table. And it's like, OK, where are the women of color in your organization? Oh, well, they go to the African-American group or the Hispanic group. Well, have you invited them to the women's group because, you know, they are oh so female? Well, we keep the door open, but they want to go there and it's okay. The opportunities to build relationships, the opportunity to come together, the opportunity to share work experiences, to really be allies with each other, as Stella said, those are not great in the corporate world for women of color and white women. And if a woman of color does go to the quote unquote women's affinity group, those issues are basically going to be regarding white females, their particular work issues, which are often more grounded around work-family issues. For a white woman, the work-family balance, and for black women it is too,

but for an African-American woman, she's trying to get the racism off her back. You know, she wants to deal with work-family issues too, but that experience of oppression is beating her to the ground, oftentimes more so. So the agendas get to be different, if you will. So in your book, you wrote that one of the biggest barriers to sisterhood is that black women and white women have these stereotypes about one another. Can you? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That push buttons, huh? Yeah, sure did. Would you would you mind just sort of describing them quickly and then telling us, do they still hold? Are they are they still current? And her as the caretaker, you know, she is the one that solves all the emotional problems. If you have a problem, you go talk to, another term for that would be big mama.

You go talk to big mama. I do still see black women channeled or stereotyped in that way, where they're expected to do the emotional work for the company and not being able to be recognized for all the other contributions, the analytical contributions that they have. The stereotype for black women that really holds so true is the one that's always angry. Sapphire. Sapphire. Oh, yeah. I cannot tell you how many times I walk into a company as a consultant and people will look at me and say, you know, people have brought me in an HR. Well, one of the questions we want you to help us with is why are black women so angry?

And I'm like, huh? What's your data? Well, they don't smile. They don't socialize. You know, they kind of keep to themselves. They seem to have a chip on their shoulder. And it's based on what? Because black women are not running around grinning and smiling and, oh, let's have lunch. They're busy trying to do the work that you're giving need you just to lighten it all up. Don't come in with your black outfit on. Put some pearls on, put a colorful scarf on, and don't fold your arms. So there's a whole way of talking to younger black women so that they can open up in their body language, because the assumption is that black women are angry. And that still holds today. For white women, the ice queen, I mean, Lord knows,

Rosabeth Cantor wrote about that, the woman who's out for herself, the woman who will run anybody over. Right, the Iron Maiden, I think. The Iron Maiden, exactly. The Snow Queen. The Snow Queen, the Iron Maiden. She's been around for a long time. I think the one that we talk about that makes white women very uncomfortable is the Miss Anne. The one that's there to do the work for the white male and will sabotage other efforts, particularly women of color, in order to take care of the company. I think that what you have to understand is that their perceptions that the women have, because we haven't done enough work to really

get to know each other and to individualize. I mean, Ella, I was thinking about how often you and I would be confused. People would confuse us. And we are physically very different. Ella is short and very fair skin. I'm tall and dark. And our manners are quite different. But for the longest time, people would confuse us. So they're talking to me as if I'm Ella and talking to Ella as if she's Stella. And so part of it is, I think, this thing of perception. So for example, the mammy versus the sapphire boils down to something very simple. And I've heard it from white colleagues. If they see you as approachable, they can talk to you. That's the person they prefer.

They prefer the mammy for engaging with you. If you speak out, you're militant, you're angry, and you might just be making a point about something. And in terms of the stereotypes of white women, when black women described those stories to us, it wasn't so much that they were evoking antebellum or slavery images. They were talking more about their interactions with the white women. For example, the Miss Anne. You think you have a white female colleague and you share something with them, maybe a complaint, some observation, and the next thing you know, that colleague takes it to those in power. And it comes back to bite you. And so the interpretation is that she's a Miss Anne,

she's really protecting the interests of the white males. The stereotypes come from actual behaviors that each group has seen and how they interpret them. So I don't think they've gone away because the behaviors are still there where sometimes black women feel betrayed by a white woman, or in fact, black women do get angry. So in a sense, we end up enacting the stereotypes. And so they stay alive. They stay alive because we're aware of them. So often we end up enacting them. So have you seen black women and white women managed to achieve sisterhood? I mean, when sisterhood happens, what's happening there? Oh, you know, it's funny. I teach up at Tuck. I was the first African-American woman in many of these schools, or the second.

And I have to say that at this stage in my life, I have very close, dear friends who happen to be white females. And I think one of the things that happens is that in those relationships, we have shared our pain. We have shared our frustration. We have gotten out of trying to be, you know, I'm perfect and, you know, my life is just great. To, you know, I'm not so, you know, my life is just great to, you know, I'm not so perfect. And this is where I messed up and they can see it. I have a very good colleague, you know, she will come in my office and she said, I saw what they did to you just now. I saw how so-and-so responded to you and you should go say something. I mean, there's a there's a different sense of awareness that I see with the white female friends I do have. They can call it like I can call it around race, around gender, around class. There is a different aptitude around these issues and cultural differences. And I think as I've gotten older,

I think I have gotten more compassion as well to understand that their journey, again, is not a cakewalk. And some of their experiences have been hard for them. I was taught resiliency as a kid, as a little black girl. So I know how to bounce back. A lot of times, some of my white girlfriends, they weren't taught resiliency. So they don't bounce back real well. And I've learned to have compassion on, you know, the bounce back factor. And, you know, here, let me give you a little, what I call a little black girl strength. You need some black girl strength right now. And we laugh about that, and we drink about that. You know, and, you know, we

travel about that and go on trips together. And it's really, really quite wonderful. I would say that you really have to be authentic and real. And you've really got to understand what the system is doing to you. And that you accept women where they are, because there's a part of being educated about who we are as women, women of color entering the playing field, that the edge of competition is beginning to sharpen amongst them as well. They're not as willing sometimes to embrace and to connect. And, you know, sisterhood is sometimes not all that it's cracked up to be. Well, I really wish we could keep talking about this, but I know we're just about out of time. So I want to thank you for sharing so much of your

time with us today and really helping enliven our discussion around these issues. You're welcome. Well, thank you so much for the engaging conversation and for your questions. Thank you both. financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash Network. We're continuing our conversation on workplace sisterhood. We'll get into what to do and what not to do to develop trusting relationships with the women we work with, particularly women who are different from us. We're taking our time with this subject because it's a sensitive one. There are a lot of reasons why women of different groups

don't work together. But if we want to fight sexism in the workplace and collectively advance, women of all backgrounds need to come together. We have the resources where if we wanted to make a change, if we had the will to make the change, yes, it's difficult. We could begin making actionable change now

and have different organizations in six months. That's Tina Opie, a professor of management at Babson College. Also joining the conversation by phone is Veronica Ribello, who's an assistant professor of management at San Francisco State University. Sisterhood doesn't mean we're the same. It doesn't mean that our struggles are the same. It doesn't even mean that we have to like each other. But it is about viewing our struggles are the same. It doesn't even mean that we have to like each other. But it is about viewing our struggles as interconnected and this willingness to learn from each other's experiences and not throw each other under the bus. They both study how race,

gender, sexuality, and other aspects of who we are affect the way people treat us at work. These are tough conversations. You'll hear that in our voices. But if we don't challenge ourselves to talk through our discomfort, we might never learn what we need to or feel strong enough to fight for equity. Tina, thanks for coming in. Thanks for having me. Veronica, thank you for joining us too. Thank you. Happy to be here. So you heard Ella and Stella talking about their research on black and white women in the first wave of female managers. And Veronica, I'm going to direct this at you. What is new here?

How are you seeing women dealing with each other across racial lines and other differences? Well, first of all, and unfortunately, not a lot is new. I first read this book while I was in graduate school and reread it recently, and it could have been written today, honestly. Something that really resonated with me was that I think something like 90% of Black women had conflicts with white women, but only 4% of the white women said they had conflicts with Black women. And we know that their book was interviewing white and black women, but I think a lot of

the interactions between the black and white employees in the book do cross over to how white women and women of color relate to one another more broadly in organizations. I've experienced this firsthand. For example, white women overestimating their closeness with me or other women of color, as well as underestimating negative interactions or even not noticing negative interactions, such as microaggressions or undermining. And maybe what has changed since the publication of Ella and Stella's book is all the resources we do have out there, whether Twitter, books, blogs, threads, where white women can learn about women of color's workplace experiences without still see groups of women that differ by race sharing information with each other within their groups, but not necessarily a strong sense of solidarity across race. And that has always perplexed me.

We perhaps get so busy, put our heads down. And as women, that's what we often think gets us ahead. You work hard, you put your head down, you focus, you move ahead. We don't often look side by side and see that there are women who are going through very similar things as we are. They're also going through different things. Do we understand those differences? How can we help each other? And let's not forget that the reason why we're looking at women coming together as a collective is because we make up roughly 50% of the population. And I don't know what the statistic is now, but we are definitely underpaid and underrepresented at top levels in organizations around the globe. What we're trying to do is help each other gain inclusion and equity. And the best way, or I think a way you can approach that

from a position of strength is to do that as a collective. But it's very difficult for me, sometimes, to see how we're going to be able to use gender as a way to bind us together when you have other issues such as culture, ethnicity, LGBTQ, race, age, disability, that may be filters that prevent us from really seeing each other. Are you optimistic about where we're going, though? You know, I'm wondering if more people are being included and heard in organizations and are able to form relationships with other people. Veronica, do you want to take that? Sure. For one thing, I don't think that social progress is inevitable and something that naturally unfolds over time. I think it's something that's really contested. Exactly. It's something that's negotiated, claimed, demanded. So if things are getting

better, I don't think it's inevitable. It's because of hard work and intentional efforts to foster solidarity among women of color or women and non-binary people more broadly. What does give me optimism or hope, I should say, I think are the increased opportunities for solidarity, especially social media. I know Twitter is huge in particular for Black women and women of color for mobilizing, for sharing stories and strategies, especially for those of us who are isolated or tokenized in our organizations or communities. And I'm also optimistic because I have seen more white women listening to women of color, and that is critical. And advancement is contested. You have to fight for it.

We're talking about sisterhood. I fought with my sisters. I'm not a violent person. Well, they started it. But my point is that it's not always lovey-dovey, holding hands. It's not going to be that way. And one of the things that I've seen is I've

actually had white friends and colleagues who, through their tears, are listening. And because we've established a relationship, I can say, no, I need you to actually be quiet. I don't want to hear how you think my experience is like yours. For once, can my experience stand on its own? Can you listen to what I'm saying? Can you process the discomfort? You can cry, hear some tissues, but your tears are not going to stop me from sharing my story because, you know, there's a great article on the weaponization of white women's tears, which I think is something that I encourage white women to read. And that actually, to me, reminds me of Bellin and Como talking about how, at that time, Black and white women were raised very differently and how Black women often had to be more resilient. But we were prepared for

the workforce because our parents talked to us. You know that they're probably going to think you don't belong there. You do belong there. You're brilliant. You're smart. We have had to navigate a landscape which requires that we hone emotional intelligence. We have to be sensitive to cultural signals and organizational cues or else we are the first to be fired. So when you see a woman of color who has made it to the top, you need to stop and pause and listen to her, especially when she tells you it's been a struggle. Well, Tina, one of the things you've been working on to try to resolve some of these tensions is this Shared Sisterhood project. So tell us a little bit about what that is.

So Shared Sisterhood is a project that says, OK, how can black and white women and that's that is initially where I started. And I recognize that that's problematic because we're excluding other women. But I am really interested in exploring that binary. And the reason being is because historically, those were the two largest contingencies of women working in corporate America. Now that has changed. I'm broadening that circle so that we can look at women from all different backgrounds. and inhibit connection, trust, empathy, understanding, perspective-taking between Black and white women, Asian women, Muslim women, etc. We often want to press forward and make advance, but we don't acknowledge the issues or the challenges that have historically arisen.

And at the risk of oversimplifying, if you think about your personal relationships, if someone has harmed you and never says sorry, never acknowledges that harm, but wants to now say, how can we become better friends? You're like, first, I need you to apologize for what you did before. And I need you to never do it again. It's very difficult, I think, for contemporary

white women to feel as though there are still vestiges or remnants of historical offenses that may need to be accounted for. But there are, because I think that those belief systems, those biases, those prejudices, those ways of seeing each other, they get passed down from generation to generation to generation. At least that's what I experienced when I was growing up in terms of advice. You don't trust people at work. You just, you don't do that. And I don't know if you all were raised in that way as well, but I do feel like there needs to be a reckoning and then to try to move forward into how those historical issues may be affecting some of the challenges we see in contemporary times. But the goal is always for me, action and change, positive change, I'm hoping, so that we move towards diversity, numeric representation, inclusion, which is effect on the decision-making process, and then equity, which is where, you know, we talk about the gender pay gap.

But sometimes white women, I think it's what, 70, 80 cents, but for women of color, it's less than that. But I don't hear white women standing up on a table saying, my women of color need to be paid more do you know who the biggest benefactors of affirmative action are white women it's white women we talked about this before i only know that because we did ask you before you told me that yeah it's it's white women from federal grants and contracts but yet i hear these cases anti-affirmative action cases and the face of them is black people but i don't hear white women standing up and saying actually hello this is this is a program that benefits women we've benefited from this i don't see that solidarity so it feels like you're on the end

of a branch by yourself and that branch benefits white women they're willing to take the spoils but not the risk can i ask you a little bit more about step one because you had this metaphor of like you don't want to be friends with someone who's wronged you and like until they apologize you sort of start there but i'm imagining like very awkward well-intentioned white woman randomly apologizing to like black like that black? What does that actually sound to you? What I think it looks like to your question, Sarah, is that we have white women, and I do mean white women, because for the most part, the women of color I know are far more aware of white women's history and experiences

than white women are aware of women of color experiences. So you need to educate yourselves, watch some documentaries, and then with this base level of information, you're willing to listen to women of color. But by the way, if I don't want to talk to you at that moment, respect that as well, because maybe I've been talking to other people all day and I'm drained and I'm tired.

And by the way, I have a job to do. And also not using me as a way to get rid of your guilt, to work through your guilt because I can see that a mile away. This happens so often. I see it all the time,

both in academia and more widely where we place this burden or onus on Black women to hear all our stories of racism, how we feel guilty about a microaggression we committed, or am I racist or how did I do? We do that way too much. And we really need to, I think, be forming and creating community ties with each other. And by that, I mean white people and non-black people of color. There's some really great online resources as well as in-person groups such as Showing Up for Racial Justice. That's a national organization targeting white people who are interested in dismantling racism. And there's even television shows like Insecure or Being Mary

Jane that portray workplace experiences of black women as as well as how black, white and other women of color relate to each other in the workplace. So I'm a white woman and I have a definitely default to story swapping in all kinds of contexts, whether it's at home or around the dinner table or with other women or with my book club. And what I've heard a couple of times now is sort of like the swapping stories are like, oh, that happened to me or I remember when is really alienating. And instead of building empathy, it's actually like draining it away. So I'm sort of curious to hear like what would be the ideal response? What would be a better response? Yeah, I can offer some pointers. I think if someone shares a story of pain or suffering or a moment of vulnerability, it's really valuable to thank them for sharing

because it takes a lot of courage to do that, especially if you are from a different identity group or background as a person sharing with you. So that means you're already doing something right that they felt like they could trust you or open up in that way. So I think it's important to validate that bravery and thank them for their courage sharing. I think most people, when they do share stories of pain, are seeking empathy and someone to listen to them and are

rarely seeking advice. That said, a line I learned recently that has been so helpful is, do you want me to listen or would you like me to respond? That way the person who's sharing their story of pain with you is in control and can be really specific in terms of what they need from you, if they need you to shut up and listen or if they do actually want your opinion on their story. And this one's tougher for me, but trying to count to five or 10 in my head before I speak is really helpful too, to make sure not cutting off their story or not immediately

jumping in with the first personal experience we have that relates to what they're sharing. So it sounds really simple, but I think it goes a really long way to just listen, not necessarily jump in with advice, thank them, validate their courage, and maybe even ask them point blank if they would like advice. And then especially if there's someone you work with or in community with, I think it can be helpful to keep that story in mind in the coming days and weeks and check up on them. Not necessarily referencing their specific story, but maybe going out of your way to see how they're doing, ask if you can help them in any way. Because if they're sharing a story about something ongoing in the workplace, they might not have a lot of support for it. Or

even if it was an event that happened in the past, it might be weighing on their mind. That's so helpful. So Veronica, after we've listened, what do we do then? Yeah, so after we've taken the time to hear someone's story, withhold judgment or problem solving, we need to continue learning. It's not to assume that everyone who belongs to a certain identity or group will share the same experiences, but that they might be connected to similar struggles. So I think it's important that, especially if you don't belong to a certain group, to take the time to learn about their struggles,

their challenges, as well as their resources and accomplishments as a group. Then we need to lobby. So those of us who do have more privilege, who have greater proximity to whiteness, whether as white women or non-Black people of color, we need to be really mindful about creating and promoting opportunities for women of color in our organizations and communities. We are in a great position to be able to educate other people about racism, microaggressions, intersectionxual invisibility, other struggles that women of color face, especially since some research finds that white people are more likely to listen to other white people about race-related messages than they are to people of color. So we need to change that long term. But in the meantime, white people can use that to their advantage, to try to use their privilege for good.

And I know a lot of my white women colleagues are not comfortable with expressing emotion in the workplace, specifically anger. And there's research, Victoria Breskell has done some work on angry women, as have Ashley Shelby Rosette and Robert Livingston and others. And so I know that there can be backlash against women, especially white women, when they express anger. However, passion. If there's a way for white women to lobby passionately about this and to be undeterred when they knock on the door the first time and someone says, you know, we have other priorities. Well, why? Ask follow-up questions. Why isn't this a priority? Other organizations have worked on this. Why can't we? Here's some suggestions on what we can do. Here's some women of color who I think can help us think through this.

Here's some ways that this will benefit us and advantage us. And I really think this topic, it can be so uncomfortable that it's very easy for it to be dismissed. And we go to the next annual evaluation, the next strategic planning session, and it falls lower and lower and lower in priority. And I think it's important for us as women to really emphasize the need for equity for women and also for women of color and other demographics. I really want to emphasize, for me, the importance of that passion or anger. Anger is a signal of something else, that our espoused and inactive values are misaligned. We're not doing what we say we're supposed to stand for.

That is harmful to organizations. And I love this organization. I want it to do better. So I'm going to keep pushing on this front. And I think it's just difficult for me to imagine that if women are roughly half of the population in organizations, that if 50% of the population was pushing on this, we wouldn't make more advance. I just want to make the point that as women are climbing higher in organizations, we don't have to ask for permission so much.

We can just go out and do. You can bring in candidates who don't look like everyone else in the office, who don't think like everyone else in the office. I think that people pay a lot of lip service to the value of diversity, and when faced with it, get frightened, but you can call people out when they do, when they start making excuses.

We have power, and we should be using it. I'll mend that. Veronica, can you help us understand where white women have some blind spots? Sure. So Tina already mentioned some of them. I think one of the biggest one is this idea of defensiveness and what Robin DiAngelo calls white fragility. And essentially, it comes down to resistance to being held accountable for racism. So if someone is called out or held accountable for something they said or did that was problematic, there's a tendency to react with

frustration or to cry or to become very defensive. And this kind of reaction overpowers the conversation. And then whoever brought up the behavior situation to begin with that was potentially racist, sexist, or whatnot, their job is then to console the person crying and upset that they've been accused, so to speak. So something we all need to do is to develop and strengthen our skills needed to hold each other accountable, including the ability to have open and honest conversations about race and racism in the workplace. I think another blind spot that Bell and Encomo talked at length in their book is this idea of overestimating closeness with women of color, that white women feel like they were closer to women of color in relationships than the women of color actually felt, and that the white women

were less likely to perceive moments of racism or microaggressions that black women did perceive or experience. So I think that can maybe be addressed through some of the learning and listening we talked about earlier, but making sure we are, I guess, accurately perceiving situations or engaging in dialogue so we're aware of how other people are affected. Veronica, can I chime in on this one real quick? So the overestimating closeness, it's always interesting to me because I've experienced that from white women in particular. And I often wonder, is it because they are projecting themselves onto me

so that they think I'm just like them because we're women? So they see me as black and they want to assume that we're similar. I don't know if it's that, or is it because they're interacting with a stereotype of who they think I am? So black women are chill and I'm a larger black woman. So maybe I'm reminding them of the mammy stereotype in some way, shape or fashion, which is comforting so they can just say, hey, girl, how you doing? By the way, that's a pet peeve. Yeah, don't do that. I pretty much don't. I don't want to be called girl, girlfriend by people I don't know in general, but definitely not by white women. I mean, I just, I hate it, especially if her accent changes.

And when she talks with white people, she speaks in a different way. So it's sort of this switch where it's, again, it's so saying girl, girlfriend, those words in my community. And Veronica, you tell me if there are other words that in Latinx communities may be used. But listen, that word has a specific meaning and a specific relevance. I say, girl, oh my gosh, you don't know what happened. That is a specific conversation that I'm having in a particular context with people who I know. And so when someone who doesn't know me assumes that familiarity, it is super annoying, especially because it's assumed familiarity that is racialized because they don't talk like that to other white

women. So they're thinking, oh, this is the way to get in. So it's like I'm being oversimplified as well as stereotyped. So Veronica, sorry we interrupted. No, that's great because I think what you just shared, Tina, is a great rubric that white women and non-Black women of color can use in the workplace more generally when they are interacting with black women or other women of color asking themselves, do I behave the same way with other people in the workplace? Or am I modifying how I'm talking, how I'm carrying myself, how I'm presenting my body language? Can we talk about the benefits of shared sisterhood? Where are we trying to go and why? Why do we want to go and why?

Why do we want to get there? So that's a great question, Nicole. And first what I'd say is that when I conceptualized or when I tried to develop shared sisterhood, I really thought of it as a means to realize social change. So if you remember the Women's March. So that to me is a visible manifestation of shared sisterhood. All those pink hats flooding the streets. And by the way, there were men, women, and non-binary people in the march.

So this is about all of us recognizing that when we uplift and recognize women, we're trying to create social change that leads to equal opportunity, which can benefit all of us. The second benefit is that it's an end into itself. Do you all have good girlfriends? Girlfriends that you don't have to wear a mask, you don't have to pretend, you can be funky with them, and you know they love you enough so that you can go apologize, and you'll still be good. You have other girlfriends you may not talk to for two or three years,

but when you call each other on the phone, you can reconnect and they get you. You can be authentic. Psychologically, can you imagine what that would be like if organizations created relationships like that amongst women? And again, I'm not saying that your colleagues have to be your best friend. But if we could extract some of the things that may happen in the workplace where you trust each other, you know that this person has your back, that they advocate for you, that they're willing to listen, that they're willing to learn, that they're lobbying for you. Think about psychological safety. Think about the culture at an organization like that. Think about the climate.

Think about your productivity. So it's an end in and of itself. And then the third thing is, I think it's a model. So we're talking about womanism, feminism, but there are so many other identities. But can women, since we're 50% of the population, what if we were able to get our stuff together? What would that represent to the rest of the world in terms of having a multicultural society? So how can we use ourselves as a way to say, this is possible, we're getting along as women. Now can we get along as based on religious backgrounds or sexual orientation or gender orientation or gender preference, socioeconomic status? It's a model to hopefully reflect how we can advance as a society as well. Tina, that was beautiful.

My heart is just blowing. I'm so grateful to have such a strong community of sisters. You're about to have me crying. I'm serious. Biological sister. Hi, Rebecca. My mom has six sisters, so at a very literal level. Grew up with a lot of strong women

and saw the power of solidarity of not traversing through life struggles alone and i think that's one of the biggest benefits of sisterhood that it is a tool or mechanism of solidarity and like tina said that we can connect to larger systemic structural struggles because I think one consequence of patriarchy and institutional racism and other forms of discrimination is isolation, individualizing struggles, feeling like whatever barriers we're facing, it's because of something we're doing and not doing, as opposed to larger barriers, invisible or visible, that have persisted throughout history, frankly. And so sisterhood allows us to share these struggles together, realize that we're not alone, that the pain

we're going through is something bigger than us, but together that we can work through, whether it's sharing strategies, actually dismantling these structures, or even just offering each other support so we can cope together. And it's hard. Like we said, sisterhood is something that is not automatic, even if those of us who grew up with sisters in our family, all the more reason it takes hard work, a sustained, deep, genuine commitment to be in struggle together. Veronica, thank you.

That was beautiful. It was, Veronica. Thank you. Tina, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you for having me. And Veronica, thank you. That was beautiful. It was, Veronica. Thank you. Tina, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you for having me. And Veronica, thanks again. Thank you. As I listened to those interviews again at this moment,

it forced me to confront some, you know, really uncomfortable truths about myself. That includes, you know, asking myself, how much do I actually do to fight racial injustice? I mean, we see it. We see it all the time. And there's so much more that I can do. What about you, Amy? Yes, I felt the same. And I also felt like I remember when I listened to these interviews the first time, I felt really inspired, especially by that note that Veronica and Tina ended on, that shared sisterhood could be a model for what equity looks like in society.

I remember thinking, yes, this is it. But then re-listening to them now, I have the same question, what have I done? And I think it's one thing to believe you are committed, and it's another to take action. One thing that I've been thinking about a lot, and I've been thinking about it for a long time, but it's taken on even more urgency, is that, you know, we have an obligation to get a little bit more diversity into our own workplace. And so I've been chewing on what I can do to work toward that. No excuses, no excuses. Right? How can we bring in more people of color, not just into the workplace, but into positions of power, and making sure that the people making the decisions aren't just white men. That's our show. I'm Amy Gallo. I'm Amy Bernstein. Our editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoke, Adam Buchholz, Mary Du, Tina Tobey-Mack, Erica Truxler, and Rob Eckhart. Thanks for joining us and take good care.