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Intersectionality
Intersectionality is a concept coined by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, and it essentially looks at how different forms of our identities that are marginalized actually compound when we are in social and workplace settings. So, my experience is informed not only by the fact that I am a woman, but that I am a person of color. So, as a woman of color, these two identities intersect, and often my experience will be compounded – often negatively, as research shows – because of these two identities that intersect.
And when you add other intersecting marginalized identities, that compounds even further. For example, Asian women are, unfortunately, often harmed by the narrative of being submissive. For Black women, research has shown, that shows up as this idea of being hyper-dominant, aggressive, angry. When we look at these intersecting stereotypes and biases that women of color face, it becomes even more dangerous and even more harmful in holding back our careers.
There’s this very strange sort of two worlds that we straddle between being hypervisible most of the time because we’re the only one of the few, one of the different, and being invisible because we are not seen as leaders, or we’re not often in roles of status and privilege and power within the workplace. So, we straddle these worlds of being both hypervisible and invisible at the same time.
Imposter Syndrome
Add in this concept of imposter syndrome where they often believe we’re going to be found out, we don’t deserve this success. We are frauds, and people are going to find out that we don’t belong here. It’s not that women and women of color have a lack of confidence, but men don’t. In fact, research finds that imposter syndrome is pretty universally distributed by gender. And yet, it has been pathologized, it has been called a syndrome, and it has largely been put on women to fix.
But it also has a larger systemic impact on their careers. It prevents them from having opportunities to progress, get to those high-paying jobs, advance in corporate careers because of this perceived idea that they have imposter syndrome. When women of color are constantly told, “You have imposter syndrome,” or, “You don’t belong here,” or, “What you bring to this workplace isn’t going to be recognized unless you change and you conform to what we tell you professionalism, and success, and confidence looks like,” it has an extremely long-term, damaging impact on both our sense of selves, as well as what you believe you can achieve in that workplace, in that corporation.
More leaders need to empathize with what that does to so many of us. In fact, research shows women of color are the most ambitious demographic of women in the workplace. We find so many more women of color are actually leaving corporate America. And that’s very much to do with the fact that we do not feel the sense of inclusion, the sense of safety, the sense of belonging, that our white male – and even, to a large extent, our white female counterparts – do experience.
What I would like to see is for more of us, as leaders, as people in positions of power, influence, and status, to really push back against this idea that women of color have imposter syndrome, that women have imposter syndrome. And create, again, this idea of a culture where truly everyone is included, everyone can bring their authentic and honest selves to work, who we really are, without feeling like we have to change or we have the pressure to conform.
If we really want to focus on advancing women, we want to create systems and cultures where women can bring their whole selves to work, where we can become leaders, where we can thrive, where we can make decisions. It really is about trying to understand and fix those systemic barriers that have held us back all these years that have rendered women of color specifically to be viewed and perceived as not competent enough, or not leaderlike enough, or insert whatever word is the right one here. We do have to take personal responsibility to work toward dismantling these larger systems.
Underrepresentation vs. Underestimation
When you think about underrepresentation, it’s easy to then absolve yourself of responsibility. That person isn’t here because they’re underrepresented, and they need to go out here and check this box, and this box, and this box, to be able to be represented. Now, what we find time and time again is, actually, most people who haven’t had a shot to be represented in corporate cultures have actually been denied the opportunity to be represented there. And it’s because they were underestimated. A lot of the responsibility to be represented for people of color has been put on us and we’re told, “You’re underrepresented.” And so you need to do these things to be able to come into the corporate workplace or advance over here. Whereas what we find, time and again, when people of color apply for jobs or when they throw their hat in the ring to be advanced, we’re actually denied those opportunities. We’re actually underestimated. Or our qualifications we’re told are not good enough to be able to be represented.
What “underestimated” does is it changes the framing. It moves the responsibility away from the people who have been shut out of the workforce or been shut out of advancement opportunities, and it moves the responsibility toward those in dominant groups. When you correctly estimate someone’s ability, when you believe in them, when you can see that they have the potential to rise and to thrive, that’s when you are given the opportunities, that’s when you give them opportunities.