Speaker 1: I'm Keim Azzarelli and you're listening to Seneca's conversations on
Speaker 1: power and Purpose. I am so delighted to partner with
Speaker 1: Makers on the special six part series called Keep Going.
Speaker 1: In this series, we listen to incredible conversations from Makers
Speaker 1: Conferences with a special focus on d e I. The
Speaker 1: goal is to use these podcasts as a jumping off
Speaker 1: point for conversations about d e I in your own organization.
Speaker 1: I want to give a special thanks to the Maker's
Speaker 1: conference sponsors, PNG, Price Waterhouse Cooper's an official wellness sponsor
Speaker 1: Lulu Lemon. Now. We launched the Seneca Women podcast Network
Speaker 1: about a year ago with founding partner PNG and I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio with the goal of amplifying the voices of
Speaker 1: women around the world. You probably know that podcasting is
Speaker 1: a fast growing industry, with over fifty set of podcast
Speaker 1: audience being women. But what you may not know is
Speaker 1: that only twenty of top podcasts are hosted by women.
Speaker 1: We want to change that, so we are launching dozens
Speaker 1: of women focused and women led podcasts. So if you
Speaker 1: have a show where you want to collaborate on a show,
Speaker 1: reach out to us at info at Seneca Women dot
Speaker 1: com Now, it gives me great pleasure to introduce our
Speaker 1: guest host for the Keep Going series, Amina Brown. Amina
Speaker 1: is a spoken word poet, author and host of the
Speaker 1: podcast Her with Amina Brown on the Seneca Women Podcast Network. Amina,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, Kim. What
Speaker 1: an honor to be guest hosting this special series and
Speaker 1: collaboration with Makers. We've been having such great conversations here
Speaker 1: and today's conversation is going to be very special. We're
Speaker 1: going to start with an excerpt from a talk given
Speaker 1: at Makers by Kimberly Crenshaw, Professor of Law at u
Speaker 1: c l A and Columbia Law School and executive director
Speaker 1: of the African American Policy Forum. She is the person
Speaker 1: who coined the term intersectionality, and she's going to give
Speaker 1: us a guide on exactly what it is, or as
Speaker 1: she calls it, intersectionality. One oh one, and then I'll
Speaker 1: be joined by Dr Ellabell Smith, Professor of Management Sciences
Speaker 1: at the Tuch School of Business at Dartmouth. Dr Smith
Speaker 1: and I will go deeper into the definition of intersectionality,
Speaker 1: and she's going to suggest some practical ways leaders can
Speaker 1: be sure they are taking intersectionality into consideration in the workplace. Now,
Speaker 1: let's listen to Kimberly Crenshaw and I'll be back right
Speaker 1: after with Dr Ellabell Smith. So I'm just gonna dive
Speaker 1: right in with how intersectionality can help us understand why
Speaker 1: we're not done. Now, there's a lot of nonsense circulating
Speaker 1: around about what intersectionality is, particularly from its critics. They
Speaker 1: say it's a religion, it's an identity politic on steroids.
Speaker 1: My new favorite, it's a salt on straight white men.
Speaker 1: You know what I think about that. Now, all of
Speaker 1: these ideas about what intersectionality is is completely off the mark.
Speaker 1: What intersectionality is is a prism. It's a framework, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a template for seeing and telling different kinds
Speaker 1: of stories about what happens in our workplaces, what happens
Speaker 1: in society, and to whom it happens. Now, some part
Speaker 1: of why we're not done is predicated on what we
Speaker 1: haven't been able to see, what what's not remembered, the
Speaker 1: stories that are not told. So intersectionality is like training wheels.
Speaker 1: It's to get us to where we need to go.
Speaker 1: It's glasses, high index glasses to help us see the
Speaker 1: things we need to see now. In all honesty, when
Speaker 1: I fashioned the term some thirty years ago, I thought
Speaker 1: of it as remedial education for judges who didn't get
Speaker 1: to see or didn't seem to understand what was howpening
Speaker 1: to black women. They didn't seem to understand that black
Speaker 1: women can experience race discrimination in a different way than
Speaker 1: black men do, or they didn't understand that black women
Speaker 1: could experience gender discrimination in a different way than white
Speaker 1: women did. Emma Degraphy, storied, was a person who understood
Speaker 1: that problem. She was claiming that she experienced discrimination as
Speaker 1: a black woman, but her employer and the court seemed
Speaker 1: to agree that since the employer hired black people and
Speaker 1: they hired women, even though the black people that they
Speaker 1: hired were all men and the women they hired were
Speaker 1: all white, that Emma Degraphy couldn't prove discrimination. So I
Speaker 1: was trying to figure out what kind of framework they
Speaker 1: needed to see in order to keep black women from
Speaker 1: falling through the cracks of their very narrow conception of
Speaker 1: what discrimination was. So intersectionality was just like a flashing
Speaker 1: knee on sign. I know you're used to thinking about
Speaker 1: intersectionality discrimination in this way, but I want to draw
Speaker 1: your attention to where they overlap, where race and gender
Speaker 1: discrimination intersect. So the point of intersectionality was to say
Speaker 1: that what happens to black women isn't the sum total
Speaker 1: of what happens to black men and white women. It's
Speaker 1: different and sometimes it requires a different approach. Now that's intersectionality.
Speaker 1: One oh one. I think a lot of people get that.
Speaker 1: Oh so good to hear about intersectionality from Kimberly Crenshaw herself,
Speaker 1: And I'm excited to welcome Dr Ella bell Smith, Professor
Speaker 1: of Management Sciences at the Tuch School of Business at Dartmouth,
Speaker 1: to unpack some of this with me. Ella, talk to
Speaker 1: me how how does intersectionality help us understand the particular
Speaker 1: challenges that women of color are facing in the workplace. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, hello, hello, Hello, I'm just delighted to
Speaker 1: be here. UM. Okay. In the early research on women
Speaker 1: and management, UM breaking the glass ceiling that everybody was
Speaker 1: talking about, there was a book all about white women.
Speaker 1: Black women were invisible. UM the work that Um Price
Speaker 1: Cobs did and others, and they were more organizational consultants.
Speaker 1: The work they did around black executives was primarily based
Speaker 1: on black men. So black women literally fell in between
Speaker 1: the cracks. We still fall in between the cracks. Um,
Speaker 1: intersexuality became really important because it allowed us to understand
Speaker 1: the intersection of race and gender, and for Black women,
Speaker 1: for Black women, for Brown women. We have to deal
Speaker 1: with an Asian women, Indian women, Native American women, we
Speaker 1: have to deal with the struggles that hit us because
Speaker 1: of our race and because of our agenda. Now, there
Speaker 1: was a scholar before Kimberly, and I love Kimberly. Um filomena,
Speaker 1: he said, she used the term, and we used the
Speaker 1: book in a term in our separate ways because we
Speaker 1: wrote the book before Kimberly came out with a brilliant
Speaker 1: framework of racialized sexism. So we have a long history,
Speaker 1: if you will, over thirty years of trying to understand
Speaker 1: the particular isms that black women experience. It's critical, very
Speaker 1: I could go on give you another a recent example. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's recently working with a client and um, they were
Speaker 1: doing wage analysis, which is really really important. And I
Speaker 1: was talking to the the guy who did they that
Speaker 1: great guy, brilliant, you know, good technique, all that kind
Speaker 1: of good stuff, and I noticed that he had people
Speaker 1: of colored blacks separated from gender. And I said to
Speaker 1: him in the analysis, and he was telling me, what,
Speaker 1: you know, the numbers are too small. And I know
Speaker 1: you're gonna be talking to me about intersectionality, but the
Speaker 1: numbers are too small, and you have to do a
Speaker 1: whole different cut. And if you're doing statistics, you have
Speaker 1: to make sure you're filling all the cells in to
Speaker 1: get a really good analysis. And they're not enough Black women,
Speaker 1: and so we really can't do that analysis. And YadA YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA. Um,
Speaker 1: we are still doing analysis UM around wage, around promotion,
Speaker 1: around other types of advancement at still lump black men
Speaker 1: and black women together, so we cannot differentiate what their
Speaker 1: experiences UM are, particularly around sorry, particularly around advancement UM.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've been preaching this song that you've
Speaker 1: got to understand again Kimberly's turn on the intersection between
Speaker 1: race and gender. So it's silences black women to talk
Speaker 1: about their true experiences around racism, around sexism. It's silences
Speaker 1: black women to be able to talk about their pain.
Speaker 1: Its silences black women to be able to make demands
Speaker 1: about wage, about fair treatment, about promotions, and that's devastating
Speaker 1: because when you call it out, people really don't understand.
Speaker 1: Why are you complaining? What's the issue, what's the problem?
Speaker 1: You know, you're needy the unique journey that black women
Speaker 1: have to deal with on a day to day basis.
Speaker 1: It's not understood, it's not talked about. It can't be
Speaker 1: fully celebrated either. Not all negative, it can't be fully
Speaker 1: appreciated either. Let me ask you about this. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of people listening to this podcast that are leaders, managers,
Speaker 1: They are in positions to actually make some decisions regarding
Speaker 1: how things go in the workplace. What advice would you
Speaker 1: give to folks who are in a position to hire,
Speaker 1: who are in a position to handle promotions, handle raises
Speaker 1: and these different kind of conversations. What advice would you
Speaker 1: give to them on how they can take intersectionality and
Speaker 1: put it into practice. Don't ever show me as a
Speaker 1: consult organizational consultant. Don't never show me here's what's happening
Speaker 1: to the African Americans, and here's what's happening to the women.
Speaker 1: What they can do, they can demand and always realize
Speaker 1: that you have to in your approach of understanding institutionalized racism.
Speaker 1: You need to look at it from a intersectional perspective.
Speaker 1: What's happening to the black men, what's happening to the
Speaker 1: black women, what's happening to the brown women, what's happening
Speaker 1: to the brown men, and what's happening to the agents
Speaker 1: based on race and gender. That becomes critically critically important.
Speaker 1: You can't do these large lump analysis. Um, when you
Speaker 1: look at your pipeline, don't tell me, well, I've got
Speaker 1: women so often that here we've got women in the pipeline.
Speaker 1: My question is what do those women look like? Well,
Speaker 1: you know they're mostly white. Oh, you did an intersection analysis,
Speaker 1: you would know that you don't have have a diverse
Speaker 1: female popline. You just don't. And you're talking about we
Speaker 1: got plenty of women. Why is it that when we
Speaker 1: talk about women in management in an executive positions that
Speaker 1: you know and and and those numbers are not great
Speaker 1: by the way, Um, but when we talk about them, um,
Speaker 1: you know, there's like, oh, yeah, we got women, but
Speaker 1: there's no thought to what's the ratio background of those women.
Speaker 1: And then when you say black women, well, you know,
Speaker 1: we haven't gotten there yet. It's like a second thought. Oh,
Speaker 1: well we're gonna work on that next. Um. If you're
Speaker 1: gonna give all women equal footing, which you should be doing,
Speaker 1: then you've got to take an Internet intersectionality perspective. How
Speaker 1: are you developing all women? Which means you've got to
Speaker 1: look at it from a racial gender lens. Um development.
Speaker 1: You know, I teach it talk that we do these
Speaker 1: great executive programs. Um. If I see in a black
Speaker 1: face and some of our executive programs, I'm shocked. I'm shocked.
Speaker 1: Companies are not spending money on developing black talent period. Okay,
Speaker 1: they're just not. Um, those programs are phil with white
Speaker 1: white men and a sprinkling of white women. Okay, but
Speaker 1: then no brown faces, very very few. The reality of
Speaker 1: it is, you've got them pay equal time to race
Speaker 1: and gender. That intersection on who are you developing, who
Speaker 1: are you grooming, who are you sponsoring? Who do you know?
Speaker 1: What are you doing to get to know your diverse segments? Um,
Speaker 1: And it can't be well, you know, we have we
Speaker 1: have an affinity group for the blacks. I am tired
Speaker 1: of hearing that. You know, yeah, we we we have
Speaker 1: we have an employee reseurce group for our blacks. Okay,
Speaker 1: and we have one for women. Where do where do?
Speaker 1: Where do women of color fitted? H They don't feel
Speaker 1: totally welcomed in the white group because white women have
Speaker 1: a very our Our book are Separate Ways, which is
Speaker 1: coming back out in August reissued. Get a copy of Everybody.
Speaker 1: Um shows clearly that the navigation that is needed for
Speaker 1: a black woman to succeed in a corporate arena compared
Speaker 1: to a white woman is very very different, Okay, different
Speaker 1: realities night and day. So the reality of it is
Speaker 1: you need to understand that women of color need a
Speaker 1: safe harbor where they can come to support each other,
Speaker 1: lift each other up, create a powerful network, and get
Speaker 1: to know to corporate executives. Um. I'm very very proud
Speaker 1: of the work that I did decades ago. Now at PepsiCo,
Speaker 1: we actually started a based on the you know, the data.
Speaker 1: Always start with your data, okay, always what is the
Speaker 1: data tell you? Uh? And by data, you've got to
Speaker 1: collect some data, you know. We did focus groups with
Speaker 1: the African American women and the brown women, in Hispanic
Speaker 1: women and the Asian women. We wanted to know what
Speaker 1: their experiences where. We did exit interviews with the women okay.
Speaker 1: We actually contacted women who had left PepsiCo okay, and
Speaker 1: the data was like, oh my gosh, it was powerful
Speaker 1: data which then enabled us to say, the women of
Speaker 1: color need a special UM employee resource group, and PepsiCo
Speaker 1: still has as far as I know, a woman of color,
Speaker 1: multicultural women. I believe they call it affinity group. You know,
Speaker 1: for years I did a leadership program ASCENT leading Global
Speaker 1: Women to the Top, and that was a program that
Speaker 1: did two things. Here's the skills for brown and black
Speaker 1: and Asian women also UM white women to learn how
Speaker 1: to navigate, how to succeed. If we can figure out
Speaker 1: what's wrong with their reality in the workplace, then we
Speaker 1: can flip that and understand what is needed in order
Speaker 1: to get them to succeed, okay, both from their corporate
Speaker 1: sponsors UH and the culture as well as how they
Speaker 1: need to bring their voice to the table. The second
Speaker 1: thing that program did was to bring white women into
Speaker 1: the program so that the women of different racial backgrounds
Speaker 1: to learn to be co conspirators, not allies. You know,
Speaker 1: we talk a lot about allies. You know, Allies can
Speaker 1: come and go and Allie can be there. Sometimes that
Speaker 1: all I can say, well, you know this is not
Speaker 1: in my best of venturess, So I'm not gonna fight
Speaker 1: this battle with you. Sometimes allies this want to, you know,
Speaker 1: have a coffee break with you. Um. We need co conspirators, um,
Speaker 1: women who have skin in the game, women who really
Speaker 1: look out for each other, I have your back, Women
Speaker 1: who when they get to the table, particularly white women,
Speaker 1: because white women get to the leadership table quicker than
Speaker 1: black women, than Brown women, than Asian women, we need
Speaker 1: to say once you're at that table, when they're at
Speaker 1: that table, we need them to be able to say,
Speaker 1: where are my fellow women who don't look like me?
Speaker 1: So we wanted to build that relationship, UM, so that
Speaker 1: they learned to become true sisters. Okay, because we don't
Speaker 1: necessarily grow up having a white woman as our best
Speaker 1: friend or a black woman as our best friend or
Speaker 1: hanging out. You know, we live in a pretty segregated world.
Speaker 1: Not if you have that blessing, that's fantastic, but we
Speaker 1: want to to make sure that all women had and
Speaker 1: that came to assent an opportunity to develop those deep,
Speaker 1: trusting relationships, and those relationships you know, six years later,
Speaker 1: are still strong, still strong. It's amazing to see and
Speaker 1: how they support each other, you know. So you've got
Speaker 1: to number one, get the women to come together to
Speaker 1: realize that, you know, one success does not equal everybody's success.
Speaker 1: Co conspirators want everybody to be successful, you know, and
Speaker 1: am willing to fight for that in a diplomatic way. Okay,
Speaker 1: But the companies have to be very aware on how
Speaker 1: they're doing their analysis, what their pipeline looks like, who
Speaker 1: are they developing, what they look like. You've got to
Speaker 1: ask the question, you know what, who who's in it?
Speaker 1: Based by race and gender? Okay, what kind of feedback
Speaker 1: are we getting? What kind of opportunities are we creating?
Speaker 1: You know, we we've got to be able to think
Speaker 1: that and not just think every brown and black woman
Speaker 1: and employee relations or human resources or diversity positions. Okay,
Speaker 1: those are dead end. M hm, those are dead and
Speaker 1: because oh, well we've got in and human resources, We've
Speaker 1: got plenty of black women. Well who that. That's great,
Speaker 1: that's a good feel. But we need to have them
Speaker 1: in general management where they are accountable for the money
Speaker 1: making part, the profit making part of the company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we need to be able to show that we've got
Speaker 1: skills that we can do, that we can market a product.
Speaker 1: You know, we we were in the profit generating centers.
Speaker 1: That's the other thing I want to see. Don't tell
Speaker 1: me how I've got our d and I person is
Speaker 1: African American. Really, I'm so surprised. You know, it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: where are they in the money generating centers? Uh, you're
Speaker 1: missing an opportunity. Dr Ella bell Smith, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us and taking us to task. I
Speaker 1: hope all of you that are listening are taken to
Speaker 1: task today that we can consider intersectionality in our workplaces.
Speaker 1: Dr Ella, thank you so much. You're so very welcome.
Speaker 1: Dr Ella bell Smith. Always wonderful to hear from her,
Speaker 1: and what a helpful way to look at and act
Speaker 1: on intersectionality in the workplace. So here are three questions
Speaker 1: to ask yourself when it comes to intersectionality. Do you
Speaker 1: have the data in your own workplace that you need
Speaker 1: to make progress? Are you collecting the information that will
Speaker 1: allow you to address the specific needs of multicultural women
Speaker 1: and women of color which may be different from the
Speaker 1: needs of white women. Are you creating brave space where
Speaker 1: white women can go beyond ally ship and become co
Speaker 1: conspirators with women of color as they seek success and equity. Finally,
Speaker 1: are you developing your pipeline, are you ensuring that it's
Speaker 1: filled with people of color and women of color? And
Speaker 1: as you bring people along, are you moving them into
Speaker 1: positions where they can have a real impact on the company.
Speaker 1: Let's think on these things and be ready to take action.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. You're listening to Seneca's Conversations on power
Speaker 1: and purpose brought to you by the Seneca Women Podcast
Speaker 1: Network and I Heart Radio with support from founding partner PNG.
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