For years society has been celebrating the advancements of women in the workplace. They were applauding diversity, employment equity, affirmative action, feminism, women’s suffrage, etc., all with the blanketed assumption that all women benefit equally.
We don’t. We haven’t. But we should.
The racial hierarchy that exists in society exists within women’s movements. A bias that leans toward a certain type of woman – often to the exclusion and detriment of marginalized women.
When we overlook the intersecting identities of racialized women, furthered by orientation, socioeconomic status, age, body type, ability, etc., we lose. These movements do not capture the nuance and complexity of the lives we lead but rather advance from the position of the most privileged among us. These omissions skew any metrics, data, and progress that society tells us we have all made. White women do not represent all women any more than Asian women represent all racialized women. We have to look more broadly at who identifies as a ‘woman,’ how they present, their life experiences and build movements designed to create parity for the most oppressed among us.
‘I don’t see colour.’ Start. Because, until you do, the pursuit of equality will never be equal. And, until we consider the real-life challenges of those who struggle the most to advance in society, we won’t be.
When Kimberlé Crenshaw created the term intersectionality over 30 years ago, it cast a spotlight on what it means to navigate linear systems in our broad realities. We are intersectional as racialized women, our uniqueness so beautifully yet, at times, painfully intertwined; we don’t get to choose one over the other – ever.
And it is incumbent upon us to uplift all of us. Irrespective of race, age, size, orientation, religion, ability, we are women. Let us be united in celebrating that. Let us be untied in elevating the value in that. Together we will #BreakTheBias.
Our next blog for #IWD is from the point of view of our employee experience manager, Staci Carreiro, who shares how she dealt with former colleagues in a historically male-dominated industry.