The precarious relationship between Black Women & Work: Why I became a career coach?
Black women and work have been inextricably linked; Black women have always been exploited laborers — during slavery, Black women were forced into domestic servitude, and responsible for the caretaking of white families. During the civil rights movement, Black women served as organizers, teachers, social activists, architects, and supportive spouses — however, much of their visibility and impact during the civil rights movement was overshadowed by popular Black male civil rights activists. The labor of Black women is often rendered invisible — a racist and sexist system often overshadows and invalidates their work accomplishments. While Black women continue to face inequities in hiring, pay and advancement today, their labor force participation has been noticeably steady. In many ways, Black women have had to reckon with their own systemic oppression in the labor market, while also recognizing that work is central to their own identity, economic security, and liberation.
The multidimensionality of Black womanhood is rarely acknowledged in American workplaces. We have historically relied on Black women to be the mule, often ascribing “superhero” like attributes to them that only lead to workplace burnout, and imposter syndrome. Black women must be exemplary in the workplace — making mistakes are never an option, and will only lead to more scrutiny, and questioning of their place in the workplace. The over-performance and burnout we see from many Black women is largely due to the inability of the economy and workplace to accept imperfections and cultivate a culture of “mistake-making.”
We all know that life doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and employees are not absent of personal lives and stories that shape their work identity. Black women workers hold a multitude of roles — they are mothers, aunts, caregivers, and economic providers, and largely have to carry the added burden of supporting families and communities. These personal identities and stories often rarely get acknowledged or validated in the workplace — rendering the humanity of Black women invisible. We often judge the need for time off or community care very differently for Black women than we do for white women; we make assertions that a Black woman’s need for rest and care aren’t credible or valid.
Much of America’s social progress can be attributed to Black women — from the Black Trans Right movement led by Marsha P Johnson to the Black Lives Matter Movement led by three Black women organizers Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. From the Me-Too Movement, voting rights, and reproductive rights, wherever there is collective outrage and hurt, Black women have always shown up with a spirit of selflessness to nurture, heal, educate and advocate for the disenfranchised. Black women have always had to hold space for disenfranchised communities, while recognizing that much of the holding of space for others is often a detriment to their own humanity and liberation. If you are not a Black woman, ask yourself how have Black women in my workplace held spaces for others, while sacrificing their own needs? Why are Black women always leading “care work” in the workplace, when their workplaces have often shown very little care for them? Why do we see “care work” as something Black women do and not something they are entitled to receive?
Work has always held a precarious role in the lives of Americans-we recognize work as a central part of the capitalist system, and often a path towards the proverbial American dream and economic self-sufficiency. Work has also been a site of division and systemic inclusion. Marxists definitions of working classes highlighted two types of workers — the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The proletariat is the working class or lower class in society who live solely from selling their labor power and do not own the means of production; the bourgeoisie own the means of production. Marx showed how the relationship between workers and capitalists and labor and capital is, beyond merely an economic relationship between equals, exploitative and contradictory. Today, much of the same divisions are evident today, albeit we call it different names. Divisions between entry level workers vs. C-suite or executive levels, middle class America vs. 1%, and we see widening divisions between racial and social classes when it comes to hiring, pay, and advancement across many industries.
As America has modernized, and access to education, credentialing and skill development has widened, many people believe that work serves both an economic and personal fulfillment function. Naturally, when people have increased opportunities to upskill and/or reskill, they can begin to take ownership over their career aspirations and trajectory, finding alignment between their educational goals, and careers. There are some people who search for purpose driven work — work that allows them to have a larger social impact or role in helping advance the social progress of America, or work that makes them feel personally fulfilled.
Consequently, it is very challenging for Black women to navigate these two opposing work worlds — one that acknowledges work as personal fulfilling, and one that acknowledges work as harmful and oppressive. Navigating these two conceptualizations may lead to cognitive dissonance, depression, and fear or discomfort with career advancement, It may manifest itself in the form of a “career rut”, or a scenario where you have a a sense of hopelessness or uncertainty about your career goals. For Black women in particular, it’s hard to articulate what constitutes a culture care of the workplace, when the world has been so unkind to them.
I became a career coach to help Black women like me who must navigate these two opposing work worlds and make sense of them. We spend a great deal of time at work, and Black women deserve happy, healthy and productive work lives. I became a career coach because as a Black woman, I am uniquely positioned to observe how systemic barriers manifest itself in the workplace, and why “leaning in” isn’t always the most viable solution for us in the face of blatant racism and sexism.
As a career coach, I want to inspire other Black women to take pride and own skills that have traditionally been misunderstood. For instance, skills like being cultural bridgers who can linguistically communicate across lines of difference is something that should be celebrated because it takes a certain level of intellect to be able to communicate and be understood by a senior level executive, and the neighborhood grocery store clerk. Black women are positioned at the intersection of race, class and gender, which makes being cultural bridgers or liaisons between different groups an asset.
In many ways, I became a career coach because I, to recognize the contradictory role work has played in my life — being both a source of accomplishment and frustration. Most importantly, much of my own help and support of Black women and their career inadvertently leads to my own liberation and career clarity. I think Toni Morrison captured this correctly by the statement, “If you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.”Toni Morrison
