As an Asian American woman, Lulu Shi says she has fallen victim to workplace disparities that continue to haunt women of color. She has over 20 years of experience working as an analyst in the oil industry and three master’s degrees, and yet despite these qualifications, Shi says she often faces discrimination — getting rejected for raises, paid less than her colleagues when promoted and treated differently than her male coworkers.
“As a woman of color, there have been times that I felt as though I was treated unfairly compared to my white counterparts, despite putting in the same, if not more amount of effort into my work,” Shi told Sampan.
This type of discrimination is still pervasive, according to recent research and interviews, as we head into the year 2024.
Over the past decades, there has been an increase of women in the workforce. Ever since World War II, when women had to take on their husbands’ roles because they went into the military, women have been placing themselves more and more into traditionally male-dominated jobs. However, the increase of women in the field has also led to many different types of disparities, including with salaries and growth opportunities. Nobel Prize Winner in Economics , Claudia Goldin uncovered key drivers of gender differences in the labor market, demonstrating why and how the earnings and employment rates depending on gender have changed over time. Goldin described that the contraceptive pill was a major revolutionary pill that helped accelerate the progress of women’s careers. She showed that the main reasons for shifts in income based on gender was education level and occupation status.
In the past 30 years, women have earned more college degrees than men; however, they are still paid less than men. According to a study from the Economic Policy Institute about gender and wage gaps, women are 25% less likely to receive a raise than a man of the same occupation status. In particular, black women of color reported that they faced behaviors like microaggressions from their managers and coworkers, oftentimes lowering job satisfaction and making them feel “less than”, no matter how hard they worked.
Lack of support and lack of network are big challenges for women of color. In the report, “Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’ by the National Institute of Health, described women are placed in uncomfortable situations of needing to satisfy men in order to move up the ranking of leadership. They described bias, discrimination, and sexual harassment, which made it difficult to gain important leadership roles.
In the entertainment industry, women have been exploited for their bodies by men in higher roles in order to get more screen time or bigger roles and move up their ranks. The key reason the Me Too # was such a powerful movement that it gave women of all races the courage to speak out about their abuse because they did it together.
A new study by the University of Vermont measured the burden that comes with being a black woman in predominantly white institutions of higher education. It found that oftentimes black women are more ambitious than white women, but are unable to get the connections that they need to be mentored to achieve their goals. One professor said that white male executives in higher positions tend to feel “uncomfortable” mentoring black women causing black women to not be able to get the mentors they need.
Asian women tend to experience racialized forms of sexual harassment that can cause isolation and exclusion from leadership opportunities. A Korean grad student told Sampan that she had to quit her job because her boss would not leave her alone. She knew that her career was on the line because she refused to sleep with him. She felt shame and guilt and did not know who to turn to. She was afraid of being fired and forced to leave the country. Sampan also interviewed a Latina Women’s Affinity Group at a large law firm who reported that they work with coworkers and supervisors who think they are unintelligent or illegal because they don’t speak perfect English. The group was made up of attorneys, paralegals, environmental service workers and secretaries and security officers. They saw this as blatant racism and there was nothing they could do about it. Many felt that they were overlooked for promotions because of racial profiling.
Although women of color typically experience a lot more hardships in the workplace and are often underrepresented in many different careers, there are ways that can help women of color feel supported in the workplace. Acknowledging and talking about the barriers that women of color face causes an increase in awareness in the workplace, leading to more regulations and policies to protect women of color from racial discrimination and inappropriate behavior. By providing guidelines and documenting cases of racial and sexist discrimination, we as a community can help create a safer and more comfortable workplace for women of color.
