Читать книгу Women of Color in Tech - Susanne Tedrick - Страница 12

For women of color who do make it into a technical career, the workplaces they enter may not be completely welcoming or made with them in mind.

The most problematic workplaces for people of color are the ones that have low representations of people of color in general. For the few present, they are usually in low-level, nonmanagerial positions—positions that require more routine, have less complex actions, tend to pay lower, and have limited opportunities for advancement. You would typically find most of these types of positions in administrative support, facilities management, operations, and customer service.

Almost all employees of color, regardless of their function within an organization, have to deal with explicit bias (when someone engages in direct verbal or physical harassment against you based on their held beliefs and attitudes) or implicit bias or microaggressions (when someone is not conscious enough to recognize that their behaviors and attitudes are harmful yet exhibits them anyway). According to Deloitte's 2019 State of Inclusion (a survey conducted at companies with more than 1,000 full-time employees), 63 percent of African American respondents and 46 percent of women respondents reported experiencing bias at least once within a year from which the survey was taken.

Years ago, at a previous employer, I remember coming to work the day after Christmas. A few minutes after I got settled for the workday, one of my white, male colleagues approached my desk. He asked why I was in the office, to which I replied simply (although baffled) that the office was open. He then replied, “But it's Kwanzaa. Did they make you come in to work today?”

I did not know how to respond. On the one hand, you can argue that the colleague meant no harm and was concerned that my civil liberties were being violated. Yet, it can also be perceived that he was making a slightly racist observation because I was the only Black person in the office. In the interest of ending this episode quickly and without incident, I simply said I don't celebrate Kwanzaa.

This seemingly floored him—how could I not celebrate Kwanzaa? How could I not be knowledgeable about Kwanzaa? From there, he felt it his “duty” to inform me of the background and importance of the holiday by coming back to my desk, at least five more times throughout the day, to tell me why and how Kwanzaa is celebrated.

When I tell this story to friends and others, it's usually in a humorous “Really? Seriously?” tone. But in retrospect, there were many things wrong with this interaction, and because I was a minority in every sense of the word at that place, I did not feel empowered or safe talking about this with Human Resources or with anyone else seriously. When I was let go from the company due to financial budget cuts, I was secretly relieved to never go back there again.

Tokenism, or when someone is hired more for the sake of appearances than whether the organization believes in your abilities, also occurs. This is likelier to happen in organizations that employ affirmative action in their recruiting and hiring methods or look to achieve certain placement goals in hopes of increasing diversity in certain positions.

Affirmative action generates a ton of debate; many argue that race and gender should not be considered in hiring decisions. Only the person who is most skilled at the job should be hired. Yet, as a society, we have collectively more or less agreed that women and people of color have been disadvantaged as soon as they could enter the American workforce and do not have access to the same opportunities that white males do, and therefore, accommodations need to be made for an equal playing field.

As someone who had been told by another previous employer that I was an “affirmative action hire,” I can't tell you how belittling and humiliating it feels. While I was doing well in my job and had gotten along with my white male colleagues for the better part of two years, it hurt to learn that I wasn't their first, second, or even third choice and that the only reason I got the position was that Human Resources intervened and insisted that I be hired.

Then, there are the issues of pay and advancement. Historically, women and people of color have made less than their white male counterparts. For every dollar earned, women of color average 64 cents for every dollar a man makes. For Black women, they earn 61 cents for every dollar. It sadly is not much better in technical professions. Men are offered more pay for the same role that a woman takes 60 percent of the time; Black women averaged 89 cents for every dollar their white male counterparts made.

It should not be surprising that women of color are leaving tech jobs. The Tech Leavers Study, a study by the Kapor Center for Social Impact, highlighted that the experiences of women of color are dramatically different than their white peers. Thirty percent of women of color respondents claimed that they were passed over for promotions, and 24 percent reported being stereotyped. Thirty-six percent of the women of color cited unfairness as their primary reason for leaving their jobs.

Seventeen percent were subjected to what is called the cross-race effect, where they were mistaken for another person of the same race or gender. Although these interactions may be unintended, people who commit these mistakes (usually someone who is not of a person of color) downplay just how harmful and offensive these blunders can be to the person on the receiving end. It can solidify that they are not seen as a person to be valued or respected.

This is not to say that this path (or these experiences) is true for every woman of color. Every woman's path to tech is remarkably different. Some women have fully supportive environments and communities from the time they're born. Others transition into tech after having worked in completely different fields.

But when we examine the entire pipeline of bringing women of color into tech, it's clear that there are significant “leaks” in the pipes. It's clear that women of color are challenged at almost every stage of their journey, and the likelihood of their success is small. Just as there is no single reason for the lack of women in color in tech, there is also no single fix to this complex problem.