The ‘Separate Ways’ Black and white women advance at work

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Twenty years ago, two professors set out on an ambitious research project to document the experiences of Black and white women in the workplace.?

In 2001, Ella Bell Smith and Stella M. Nkomo published Our Separate Ways , where they spoke with more than 100 female executives to understand how they climbed the ranks in corporate America. Their report exposed many of the surprising — and often undiscussed — differences between Black and white women’s journey to the top. The book illustrates everyday interactions at work like meetings with white-male bosses or company happy hours can be wildly different for Black women than they are for their white counterparts.

By directly addressing the unique barriers that Black women face, the authors hoped to start a discussion around race and gender at work.

“We were trying to be optimistic and we were hoping that white women and men reading the book would have the courage to really understand what it is like for a Black or brown woman to work in a white-dominated organization,” said Nkomo. “It did not happen.”?

The authors are hopeful those conversations will happen now, and they have published an updated version of their book to advance that cause. But progress is slow: Despite making up 7.4% of the U.S. population, only 1.6% of vice president positions and 1.4% of C-Suite roles are held by Black women.?

I caught up with Smith and Nkomo over the phone to discuss their goals for the book now.

Edited excerpts:?

CF: The conversations you hoped would happen in 2001 didn’t happen. Why?

EBS: When it comes to race relations in corporate America, there is a pendulum that swings. When our book came out 20 years ago, it was the month before 9/11. The conversation was not about race relations. It was about all Americans being united and the fear and anger of seeing what happened at the World Trade Center. It wasn’t a time to talk about women’s advancement in corporate America.

SMN: It was also when the whole notion of diversity in the workplace was beginning and there were early conversations about that. It said, “Let's look at diversity, let's not look at race and gender.” Focusing specifically on the intersection of race and gender got left under the carpet. Diversity became the big word.?

CF: How did the focus on diversity prevent a conversation on gender and race?

EBS: Diversity is basically understanding what the numbers look like and what the balance of numbers is. It is about the different racial, ethnic and gender makeups that you have in your organization. Diversity doesn't mean that you are working to create equal opportunity. It does not dismantle systemic racism and sexism in the organization. When you start talking about diversity, it was a term that was used quickly so that people didn't have to use the ugly two words affirmative action. Now you have diversity, inclusion and the newest one is belonging. You see advancement by understanding and using all three terms.

CF: What is pushing people to have race and gender conversations now?

EBS -- When you look at developing your workforce, you are trying to figure out the demographics. The demographics are changing. I don't think that all corporations are jumping or moving on this though. There has been a lot of stagnation for all corporations. We are now beginning to see more attention because women have found vehicles to jointly raise our voices to say we are not where we are supposed to be. There are corporations that are responding to that. There are corporations that are not responding as quickly as they could. Black and brown women are not in the pipeline where they need to be. You will see tremendous announcements on LinkedIn of all these diversity and inclusion positions getting filled by Black and brown women, which is fantastic, but we are not seeing Black women being put in key positions where they are contributing to the bottom line of the company. The notion that we are moving toward [progress] all of a sudden [isn’t accurate.] The numbers are not moving and there hasn’t been a big rush to advance Black and brown women in the workplace.?

CF: Your book focuses on the lived experiences of Black and white women in corporate America. Why was that narrative approach important??

SMN: We wanted to show that these women have a history, they have a background and they have learned a lot from being a woman and being Black. All of that, you don’t leave that at the door. When you enter the workplace, you take your identity with you. Up until our book, a lot of the research of women in management talked about their careers and did not understand where women had come from and the kinds of burdens they had to take to make it into corporate America. Many of the women who read the book say the stories relate to their actual experience.?

CF: You wrote in 2001 that many CEOs are confused about how to speak to a Black woman at their work. Has that changed?

SMN: We were trying to be optimistic and we were hoping that white women and men reading the book would have the courage to really understand what it is like for a Black or brown woman to work in a white-dominated organization. It did not happen. For Americans, race has always been a difficult conversation and it continues to be one. With the murder of George Floyd and the shooting of Breonna Taylor, people could not escape the visuals of that. Now, we have a second time to have these conversations and we are hoping corporate leaders will go beyond words.?

CF: Where do you see progress?

EBS -- What I am seeing is that we are hoping that there is a steady increase in educated Black women. Many times Black men have been more advanced in getting college educated. Black women are becoming, not that they haven't been, much more focused in their advancement and careers. When they are given the opportunity. It is still tough if you are in rural areas or urban areas without mentors or role models. More and more of the young girls are getting to see their potential. I am hopeful in what they call Black Girl Magic. Twenty years ago, there was no Black Girl Magic.?

SMN -- Black and brown women have always been ambitious. The ambition hasn’t changed. But when you unpack it, some of the challenges are still the same. You may come in with an MBA degree from an Ivy League school, and you still have to prove yourself. There are challenges still on how women might dress, but that seems to be getting better. Things have changed, but they haven’t changed. They just have new labels and names. Some of the fundamental issues that hold Black women down have not fully gone away.?

CF: You write in the new epilogue of the book that the definition of leadership needs to change. Why is that essential????

EBS: If you are feeling like an intruder in your company, you’re not going to be too motivated to use your voice at the table. We have to think of leadership in a different way. Black women come in with a different worldview because of their lived experiences. Leadership does not start when you become a leader. Leadership is how you learned your values and what is important to you. That starts early on. Women come in with a different worldview that is needed in the year 2021. We live in a much more global society. We live in a more volatile society. We need progressive leaders that can really stretch and have some wisdom and knowledge about these new complexities that leadership is now responsible for. We need to expand the hyper-masucline model of leadership. There has to be more empathy, compassion and heart. We know that, given the lived experience of Black and brown women, and white women as well, there is a new need for a feminized-type of leadership in this world.

CF: What do you hope white women get out of this book?

EBS: If you’re a white woman, this is a hard book to read. This book is going to make you angry and frustrated. I encourage you to use the book to think about how you learned about race and the relationships over the course of your life with Black little girls and Black women and what you learned from them. It is important to own where you are coming from and that is a hard pill to swallow. We need to become co-conspirators . If all women don’t advance, no one group is going to advance in the long term. It is different from being allies. Allies have a choice of whether or not they want to do something. Co-conspirators is when everyone has something to lose and everyone has to face the consequences together. That is the type of relationship we need with our white sisters.?

SMN: I hope that they will understand they need to step up and initiate. When they have a seat at the table, don’t just be a voice for gender equality but be a voice for racial equality. Women should use our power and we need to be in solidarity to use our power. I hope that my white colleagues and sisters will see that we need to build those relationships and bonds to make the workplace better not just for women, but for all workers.?

JOIN US LIVE: Tomorrow at 3ET on Women's Equality Day, I’ll be sitting down virtually with Stella Nkomo of Our Separate Ways as well as remote work expert Tsedal Neely to discuss inequities in the return to work as it relates particularly to women of color. Get a notification when we go live by clicking here .?

What topic do you want to discuss next time? Let me know in the comments below using #WorkingTogether