Equity’s Power

Women’s History Month was first established in the 1980s, as women realized the glaring gaps in the narrative of history, as told by a dominant white, male authority. ?Historian Gerda Lerner, in 1993, said, “In my courses, the teachers told me about a world in which ostensibly one half the human race is doing everything significant and the other half doesn’t exist…This is not the world I have experienced.” In response, a growing movement of women historians in conjunction with the women’s liberation movement spurred a Women’s History Week, and ultimately a Women’s History Month (National Geographic).?

As Asian women, we continue to experience this world of significance and insignificance. We are still viewed by stereotypes of invisibility or passivity and are often shunted to the sidelines unrecognized for our achievements.? As with many women of color, Asian women are held to stratospheric standards and we have climbed often bare knuckled up the cliffs of professional and societal mountains to prove ourselves just as worthy.?

And yet—our society proclaims that equity for Asian women - or at least Asians and/or women as a whole has made significant progress.. Where do we go after proclaiming fair practices when reality finds dominant groups in almost every position of power within a company’s hierarchy? How do we respond when students look up, only to find a lack of representation in the classroom, professional sector, and media? Looking at recent reports reveals that women are still experiencing lower earnings compared with their male counterparts in every age category; working women aged 25-54 experience a wage gap of 16% less than men (American Progress).???

In The Role of Intellectual Humility in Leadership and Promoting Workplace Diversity, Nhung Hendy explains that equity is, “the extent to which power within an organization is consistently recognized and redistributed,” but a broader definition is simply fairness. “Equity is all about fairness,” as AWCC Coach Beatrice Kim recently stated. Clearly, we are working and striving within an unfair balance.?

This month’s theme is “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories,” as announced by the National Women’s History Alliance. As coaches—specifically Asian women coaches—it is important for our work and identity to celebrate each other’s stories and find ways to help our clients embrace theirs too. Learning to celebrate the woman behind the story takes practice. After all, it took a whole movement of mobilized women across the nation to get even a week devoted to recognizing women’s history. In response to this need for genuine equity, what can coaches do??

Practically, we can start by asking questions with a sense of curiosity to fully understand our own and other’s lived experiences. Asking questions encourages self-examination and knowing – providing spaces for deeper understanding that promotes stronger relationships for the client and themself. Arriving at a place where questions flow easily into dialogue, however, often requires more than simply a comfy couch and warm room.?

When we want to embrace equity, we must consider the abilities, needs, and backgrounds of others and the context of these relationships. Equity is not reached in both the external and internal. The external arise out of systems, structures, or institutionalized biases that prevent equity—or even equality—from being embraced. The immutability of these barriers is normalization of poor behaviors that remain in place by those at the top or those with the most to lose. Addressing external barriers requires us to identify and share about them in vocal, active ways. The internalized barriers arise from within a person.

Internal barriers, on the other hand, can range from imposter syndrome to negative internal critics. Specifically for Asian women, however, internalized barriers become multi-headed beasts, rearing heads of cultural norms or projected stereotypes. Asian women encounter barriers such as the bamboo ceiling—the invisible ceiling Asians hit as “model minorities” facing unspoken bias and structural racism? (“Understanding the Bamboo Ceiling”)— or opposing communication styles (“Think Cultural Health”).?

Additionally, we must manage barriers such as being assumed to be soft-spoken or passive. At internships, I’ve learned to balance the ease of a casual work environment with a very real awareness to also take the initiative and speak up. While these may seem like normal behaviors, these actions stem from a dual motivation of both doing good work and working against underlying stereotypes. At other times, working at schools has reinforced the importance of not being soft-spoken—a trait I’ve been asked to alter under multiple supervisors.?

With each barrier, equity becomes a farther away goal. Conversations, lessons, and actions are needed for both ourselves and others in order to understand how to reach this goal. Oftentimes, we need to understand our identities first, as these underscore any effort towards equitable relationships.?

“Our identity defines our values and needs,” writes AWCC Coach Melanie Alciati. Perpetuating internal and external barriers goes hand-in-hand with negative core beliefs and limiting perspectives. Unpacking identity and beliefs is exactly where we as coaches can step in.?

For coaches, embracing equity means that we need to understand our own positionality, lenses, and blind spots. “Staying aware of our own biases and providing psychologically safe environments is critical in helping clients feel their voice is amplified and respected” offers Melanie Alciati. The practice of embracing equity is inherent and integrated into our practice by its nature. At the same time, we need to be reflective of whether or not we are the right fit to help our clients. We need to let go of the notion that we can be all things to all people.

Thinking about equity is more than a blip in our cultural moment of hyper awareness. It's an active agreement to work for equity by asking questions, understanding differences, and encouraging opportunities that are full of good change.

Ultimately, their month is about celebration. Celebrate the women who tell our stories, celebrate each other as we create new narratives, and celebrate the history that we have created as women. Underneath such celebration, however, is a deep need for intentionality as coaches to actively foster communities and cultures that enable such celebration. As we move forward throughout this month, operating under the auspice of equity, look for the stories and women that are asking to be celebrated. In listening to these storytellers, we find a bit of ourselves in their narratives and discover a growing courage to tell our own as part of the sweep of women’s history.

Article written by Corina Chen, AWCC researcher and writer

Edited by?Mo Fong, President of AWCC and Executive Director of the Stanford Engineering Entrepreneurship Center