Transcript:

00:00:00 Michele Goodwin:

Welcome to On the Issues, with Michele Goodwin, at Ms. Magazine, a show where we report, rebel, and you know we tell it just like it is. On this show, we center your concerns about rebuilding our nation and advancing the promise of equality. So, join me as we tackle the most compelling issues of our times. On our show, history matters. We examine the past as we think about the future. 

In this episode, we’re looking at women in leadership, specifically Black women in labor and leadership. According to the Harvard Business School, and I quote, “Black women in the workforce face distinct hurdles that require collective attention and action to dismantle.” They say that many of us will be familiar with the economic racial disparities, among them a pay gap, where Black women earn only 63.7 cents for every dollar made by a white guy. 

Despite persistent obstacles, they note, including a lack of mentorship and feedback, a dearth of role models, and discrimination in hiring and promotion, Black women consistently excel in their chosen fields and rise to leadership positions. Now, in that 2024 Harvard Business School article, entitled Black Women in Leadership, they note that “multiple studies show that Black women in leadership positions are held to different and higher standards than white women and leaders of other racial identities. 

In fact, Black women leaders also often lack the support that white peers have access to. They say that at the same time, organizations often look to Black women to lead at times of great challenge, scrutiny, or tumult. Now, Black women and girls have been laboring in the United States for centuries, from cotton and tobacco fields to reaching the second-highest office in the United States, as Vice President, but there have been tolls, too. At times, Black women have been subjected to forced involuntary reproduction for profit of others.

And drastically, in the other direction, they have been coercively sterilized. In this episode, we will talk about Black women in leadership and the glass ceilings, glass cliffs, pink ghettos, and more. What are the mental and physical tolls placed on Black women when organizations hype their leadership but secretly underpay them compared to their colleagues or undermine them in front of colleagues, and don’t forget about the conflicting stereotypes of being angry and domineering while also stigmatized as lazy and incompetent.

Today, women’s progress is not only measured by glass ceilings but also by a rubric of terminologies and metaphors to describe obstacles to full inclusion and advancement, and this affects all women. These include glass walls, barriers that hold women in the pink collar, glass escalators. Those are the occupational segregation efforts, where men in female-dominated occupations are promoted to leadership positions at a much faster rate.

Think about nursing, or sticky floors, where women are held down to low-level jobs that prevent them from seeking management positions, and you’ve heard, more recently, about the glass cliffs, where women in leadership are precariously positioned to fail. I sat down with three Black women whose careers span education, corporate leadership, academic leadership, and civil society leadership, to learn more about these issues.

I sat down with Dr. Rachel Westerfield. She is the senior manager of Global Experiences at Slack. Lynell Cadray also joined us. She’s a university ombuds and senior advisor to the president at Emory University. In the more than 30 years that she’s been at Emory, she has been a vice president, an associate dean, and dean. Joining us, as well, is Verna L. Williams, who’s the CEO of Equal Justice Works. She was previously the dean at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, where she was a professor prior to becoming a dean.

I started my interview wanting to level set a bit and wondering about what it means to be on top. How precarious is it? So, first, I turned to Verna Williams. What happens when Black women reach the top? I wanted to know. No one would assume that it’s easy getting there, but do people know how challenging it can be once you’ve grasped the highest ring? 

00:05:17 Verna Williams:

It’s been a mixed bag, to be honest with you. At the University of Cincinnati, I became the dean after having been on the faculty for something like 17 years, and so, I think that was a really big advantage for me. People knew me. You know, I had been in some leadership roles ahead of time, and so, there wasn’t…and I was walking into the position, or I got the position in the midst of a bit of a crisis. 

So, people were really appreciate that I had agreed to serve or at least put my hat in the ring, and they were happy that I had been selected, and so, it was kind of like the best way to go into that kind of position, which is not to say that there weren’t issues that came up, later, but I contrast that to my current position, where, you know, it’s a blank slate.

People don’t know me. I walked into the position following a person who’d been in the role for 30 years. Yeah. He was a white man. He was a founder. And you know, what I experienced, it’s nothing…there’s nothing overt. There’s nothing, you know, it’s more of a feeling. You sort of get this, like, what do you call it? The spidey sense, like, I know that the honeymoon is going to be short. I know that, you know, when you make a mistake, it’s so fraught, and so, you know, it’s…

00:06:53 Michele Goodwin:

Can we actually pause there, for a second, Verna?

00:06:56 Verna Williams:

Yeah. Yeah.

00:06:58 Michele Goodwin:

Because you’ve said something that was really powerful in that, which is that when you make a mistake, it’s so fraught. I think that’s actually really powerful, because we know that men, white men, especially, get to make mistakes all the time, and they float upwards, and if you look at what’s happened with Boeing and so many other industries, people float up.

Even after having sacked employees, having run the budget into the ground, having done things that actually have come to the attention of Congress, where there have been investigations and things like that, and there’s a bounce. But as you’ve mentioned, with Black women, it can be so fraught when there’s a mistake.

00:07:42 Verna Williams:
Yeah. Yeah, and which is not to say I didn’t have that same pressure at the University of Cincinnati, but at least there, I had a bit more runway. I had more of a track record, but coming into Equal Justice Works, it was different, and I was acutely aware of that. 

So, yeah, and it’s, I mean, I’m sure that Rachel and Lynell can speak to this, as well, that even before you get to a leadership position, there’s that feeling like you don’t really have, you know, there’s only so much grace that will be afforded to you. You have got to be, you know, at the top of your game, and there’s a lot of pressure. It’s a lot of pressure.

00:08:35 Michele Goodwin:

Although Verna was speaking to pressure on the job, the reality is that the stress, tensions, and worries have real health effects. The American Heart Association has taken note. Shortly after my interview with Verna was recorded, I came across a report that showed increased rates of high blood pressure and hypertension amongst Black women in their 30s and 40s and the effects.

In fact, a recent article on the early onset of hypertension in Black women shows that stress increases their risks of mid-life stroke, and this leads to early deaths and disabilities. I wanted to bring Lynell Cadray into the conversation. She’s been in higher education for three decades, and I was curious as to how she’s observed these issues and how they’ve unfolded, and frankly, what they’ve meant in her life, too.

00:09:35 Michele Goodwin:

You are responsible for handling, in part, some of the concerns that come up with regard to justice issues, professional issues that take place that are not just race-based, don’t involve just Black women. It’s for an entire campus that you have to be mindful and work these things out and to strategize around these spaces, but I’m curious in terms of what you’ve learned from that space, particularly in thinking about this from a lens of what happens to Black women in leadership or what even happened to be the pathways for them to come into leadership?

00:10:15 Lynell Cadray:

I’ve been in higher education for about four decades, a little over, and you know, I’ve been the first, I’ve been the only, from the time I started until probably the last maybe six years, and within the last six years, we began to see more and more women in these spaces, and it gets a little bit more acceptable to have women at the table.

At Emory, what I’m observing, that I did not observe, say, 10 years ago, was that I was the only woman, back then, but now, we have at least three women at the table, most of the time, and so, that gives you some leverage, some support in the room, some eye contact with someone who understands your perspectives, but you’re right.

I think, every day, someone walks into my office, a woman, who struggles with their leadership, either being accepted, being heard, being ignored, being treated aggressively by men and sometimes other white women or white…you know, men in general, and so, we have to be emotionally intelligent enough to really think about how we navigate these issues.

It gets really hard if you make a mistake. How do I get out of that? Because people notice that, up front, you know? It’s emotionally draining when you’re sitting at a table and someone thinks that you’re there to take the notes, right? It’s really, really hard because you have to push through some of that, or when you have a great idea, and no one’s listening.

And then someone across the table says the same thing, and then, all of a sudden, it’s a great idea, it’s a wonderful idea. So, we have to be able to speak up and speak out, be brave, be courageous, do it with integrity, and we have to have courage.

00:12:34 Michele Goodwin:

I think that so many women listening, now, including the women of color, white women, can relate to being at the table, the boardroom table, making the idea, people ignoring the idea and three steps later, when Tom says, verbatim, what Julie just said, everyone nodding and saying that’s a great idea, and that is such a common piece, and since you’re in academia, I think there’s so many faculty meetings where that actually takes place all the time.

00:13:07 Lynell Cadray:
Oh, yeah. Well, you know, I think I’ve seen…I’ve seen both sides of that. I’ve seen where some women get destroyed in these types of environments because the burden is too heavy, and you know, you don’t want to underestimate mental health and how pervasive it is across campus or…because it’s real, and I think we have to acknowledge that it’s real.

But I do believe that there are more women today who are…more Black women who are being successful in these environments because of our restraint, our toughness, our mental intelligence, our emotional intelligence, our ability to be adaptable, and because we understand these environments. We understand it from the way we were raised or the way we were educated around these issues or our own personal experiences. So, I think I see both sides. I see many people who are highly successful, but I also see people who struggle and who fail. That’s real.

00:14:36 Michele Goodwin:

Lynell was not wrong. While women can become destroyed in work environments, still, they are forging ahead. Today, women are earning more doctoral degrees than men. They’re earning more master’s degrees than me. And women are earning more associates and bachelors’ degrees than men, too.

Moreover, according to recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics, Black women are among the most educated in the United States. You heard me right. An article in Essence Magazine put it this way, and I quote, “by both race and gender, Black women are enrolled in college at a higher percentage than any other group, including white women, Asian women, and white men, but has that penetrated the corporate ladder, law firm partnerships, or tenure?”

Rachel Westerfield, who’s a senior manager of global experiences at Slack, reminded us that there can be multiple pathways for women in the workforce, and the terrain is not necessarily the same.

00:15:47 Rachel Westerfield:

I think about this book called Our Separate Ways, and it was one of the early texts that I received as a gift from one of my mentors, when I first started transitioning into the workplace, and it follows Black and white women up the corporate ladder and thinking about the journeys that, you know, we have a lot in common in that, okay, we have this chance to be at the table.

We have what it takes to be at the table, but then being able to…they basically double-click into all of their different journeys and say what has your experience been, what assumptions do you feel when you walk into a room, and how do you prove yourself, and what relationships are you leveraging, if there are any at all, you know, as you think about whether you’re a woman or a man, race and class, you know, what has your experience been to date and how is that serving you in the moment, to be able to join these conversations?

And so, that book made me start asking myself certain questions to prepare to walk into some of these rooms. You know, what is against me, what do I have going for me that I need to pull from when I’m put in these really difficult situations at work, and just being able to reflect on my journey up the corporate ladder. You know, what types of ideals am I up against? So, I do think about that, that book, as well. I thought that it was a really great way to start reflecting preemptively.

00:17:19 Verna Williams:

I was just…I wanted to pick up on something that Lynell said that triggered a thought about how, you know, yes, we are in leadership positions now, but you know, you have to look at how we got to those positions and that all the way…that like the journey is marked by lots of incidents that Lynell described of people discounting us, people being surprised that we’re, you know, in my case, that you’re a lawyer and not a client, people, you know, you not getting the information that other folk get, you know, different stereotypes about us, and we have to figure out how to work around that. We have to be resourceful.

00:18:13 Michele Goodwin:

That almost sounds like two jobs as you’re talking about, Verna, to kind of workaround.

00:18:16 Verna Williams:
It is. Yeah.

00:18:18 Michele Goodwin:

And being shut out of meetings that you didn’t know were happening because you didn’t get the informationthat the meeting was taking place.

00:18:21 Verna Williams:

Yeah. Right.

00:18:26 Michele Goodwin:

Not knowing that other people have been invited to something, but you didn’t get invited, too, being told things that you don’t have to be the face of this project, when you are the project.

00:18:38 Verna Williams:

Right.

00:18:39 Michele Goodwin:

Those kinds of things that people take for granted as normalized.

00:18:43 Verna Williams:

Right.

00:18:44 Michele Goodwin:

Which in the space of literature is called these micro and macro-aggressions.

00:18:48 Verna Williams:
Right. Right, and you know, I think the thing that gets me through it is, first of all, recalling…I mean, you know, we are in really unique positions now. Now, maybe not as unique, but I think about the women that came before me and all the stuff that they had to deal with and how awful it was for them. So, you know, I have not, by and large, not experienced a lot of the stuff that happened historically. 

The other thing is it’s kind of recognizing it. I mean, it’s interesting, you know, this is bigger than I am. This is not about me. This is about a system, and these folks are playing into something that they’re not even aware of, and so, it’s my…you know, I’m aware of it. I see what’s happening, and let me figure out how do I work around? Yeah, it’s more work. It’s more mental energy, and sometimes, it’s just frankly exhausting, but I think the flip side of it, and I think this is also important when you’re in a leadership position, and maybe this is something especially for us as Black women, is like the upside of that is it, I think, in some ways, it maybe makes me a better leader.

It makes me more nimble. It makes me more creative. It makes me less likely to just say, you know, we can’t do that. I mean, let’s just figure it out. And I think when I look around at my sisters who are doing it, other…because, as Lynell says, there’s a lot more of us as deans, it’s incredible. I think, you know, percentage-wise, we are over-represented as law school deans.

And I see more of us leading public-interest organizations. I see a lot of bold leadership and a lot of moves that are taking places that I think, frankly, you know, we built on the stuff that was difficult and turned it to our advantage.

00:20:47 Michele Goodwin:

If you’re just joining me, my guests are Lynell Cadray, the university ombuds at Emory University. She is a former vice president there, and she also served in the roles of associate dean and dean. I’m also joined by Dr. Rachel Westerfield, who’s a senior leader at the organization called Slack, where she’s senior manager of global experience design. 

Rounding us out is Verna Williams, the CEO of Equal Justice Works. She previously served as dean at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. We’re speaking about Black women in leadership and turning to questions regarding both the pitfalls and promises of leadership. Here’s Lynell Cadray.

00:21:30 Lynell Cadray:

So, you know, there’s somewhat of a cliché that we were called in, once again, to clean up the mess when it happens, and we can either sink or swim. Some of us sink and some of us swim, but I think what’s really…we see this all the time, and I think that’s why it’s really critical to have an en masse of women around you, whether they’re at your institution or someone else, so that we can seek the support we need.

We can’t do this work alone. You know, I heard Rachel say I think about it before I go into a meeting, what happens if this happens, or what happens if that happens, and I was thinking about when you were saying that, Rachel, take one step at a time, put one foot in front of the other, but seek out your trusted colleagues, either within your organization or outside, and make sure that you’re leaning on them and that you’re available for them to lean on you.

Because I think it’s really key that we learn from each other, and we support each other, and we didn’t always do that, but I think now is the time for us to come together and do it together, and we have to practice that. We have to practice survival because we are not always in survival mode. We’re exhausted, and so, if we practice it, we begin to practice what we really want the outcome to be, then it becomes a little bit more natural to us.

00:23:11 Rachel Westerfield:

I’m thinking about…we keep using the word exhaustion, and I think that that is a key word for my week-to-week, at least from my perspective, and I think that that comes from the work of work, kind of what Michele was describing, saying, you know, all of the different ideas and the level of preparation and all the different dynamics and politics that we have to keep in mind on a day-to-day basis, you know, it really does add to almost this second job.

And you know, Lynell, you’re talking about leveraging relationships with colleagues as you kind of move through this space. I have, so, I’ve been fortunate enough to have so many colleagues that understand that I am the only Black person, not just Black woman, in leadership in my organization. So, when I’m in these meetings, and I have these ideas, and I’m glazed over, and my white male colleague repeats it, and it’s the most brilliant thing anyone’s heard, they come off of me and they say I think we all know that Rachel just made this statement.

And you know, that, that is a very rare occurrence, but I think it’s also important that when we create these relationships on the side, you know, the meetings that happen between the meetings, you really do humanize yourself, and you become less of just, you know, a Black woman, one of which a lot of these folks have never worked with, and more this is the brain of Verna, the brain of Lynell, the brain of Michele that we need to make sure that we’re listening to.

You know, she has great ideas, and they’re adding to the fabric of how we’re developing this organization. So, you become more part of the conversation because of your ideas and what you can contribute versus just another type of person that they’re not used to working alongside, and it really does help start to include you in these conversations when you’re able to leverage all these relationships that you’ve been able to build. So, I think that’s been a key part of my experience, as well.

00:25:09 Michele Goodwin:
So, I want to help our audience understand just where this research lies and the breadth of it, and there’s more than what I’m going to describe, but just taking, over the last few years, some of the headlines, both local and national, Columbus Dispatch, just a couple years ago, ran an article, headline, can’t let it defeat you, Black women’s stories of racism faced in corporate America.

And then, we get to the Boston Globe, how Black women are undermined in the work environment and what to do about it. That’s from 2020. And then we get to Fortune Magazine, I’m a Black woman who quit the State Department over racial gaslighting, here’s why prestigious workplaces can be toxic for people like me, the Harvard Business Review in 2022, January 31, here’s this one, the angry Black woman stereotype at work, by Daphna Motro, Jonathan Evans, and Aleksander Ellis, and Lehman Benson III, unpacking what that means in the Harvard Business Review, this trope of the angry Black woman.

In Fortune Magazine, the microaggressions towards Black women you might be complicit in at work, and notably, all of this is based on research, right? The Harvard study that I started off with involved reviewing almost 10 thousand people and their job experience to get down to the crux of Black women are actually having a pretty hard time in these workplaces.

And notably, it’s not related to their qualifications coming in. You know, some might say, well, they’re having a hard time because they’re just unqualified, but these are not cases of unqualified people, people who didn’t have the resumes, didn’t have the experience, didn’t have the educational experience. This is, as some of you have mentioned, being what some might say overqualified for the job.

You know, our grandmothers used to famously say you have to be twice as good as. My great-grandmother used to say, and I think it held through multiple generations, for better or worse, take care of business now, faint later, that our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, they knew, very well, doors won’t open unless we’re brighter, smarter, more agile, more capable, able to articulate, amplify. What, then, does this hold for people looking to rise within these spaces?

00:28:01 Lynell Cadray:

That’s a tough one. You know, I think what is…it’s going to take resilience. It’s going to take adaptability, but I think the one thing that we haven’t talked about is how do we take care of ourselves, right, because no one’s going to do that piece for us. So, we have to know what it means for self-care. For some people, it means meditation, or exercise, or eating well.

But I think that it’s going to take some self-care, and then I think it will also take just really understanding the human impact that it’s going to have on ourselves and on each other, and we’ll then need to support that. We’ll need to support that, I think, to an open dialogue. We don’t talk enough about these things. There are lots of studies, and there’s all kinds of research on it, but we really don’t talk about it, day to day, because that might seem like we’re being defeated, and we’re, you know?

So, we have to do that. We have to celebrate every single win, and every day, there’s a win, you know? So, we have to celebrate, no matter how small it is, we have to celebrate those wins, and we have to keep track of them so that when we’re getting lost in the shuffle, when we’re really struggling mentally or physically, we have something to dig deeper and pull back from. And so, I think that’s going to be key as we move forward, and we just have to make sure that we’re supporting each other. It’s really key.

00:29:40 Verna Williams:

I was thinking that many of the things, I guess, I’ve observed, and just looking at my peers, women who have been elevated and have risen to these positions that, in some ways, a lot of the conditions get worse, in part because it’s so rare. We’re new in the position and it is difficult. I mean, what’s happening is these women are butting up against stereotypes. We’re not supposed to be there. You know, what does it mean if a Black woman is at that position, and you know, white men are supposed to be in that role?

I mean, it’s just sort of like…the higher you get, sometimes, it’s more difficult, and so, I guess what I’m thinking, I tend toward the glass half full. That’s one of my coping strategies, I think that and forgetting things, is that the more of us go down this path, the less weird it’s going to seem, and people will get used to it, and hopefully, we will encounter less of it.

The problem, of course, is, I mean, I think we are the generation, myself as well as you all, we have benefitted from affirmative action and programs that were designed to increase diversity, and we took advantage of it, and we can look and we can see the great progress. That door is closing, and so, you know, what concerns me is down the line.

You know, we’re making strides. We’re seeing, you know, women of color, Black women in particular, in leadership roles. We’ve got a pipeline of folks. You know, at some point, that pipeline’s going to dry up. I don’t know…I look at, you know, my daughter is at Harvard Law School. When I was in Harvard, Harvard had one of the largest populations of Black students.

That class is now…usually it was about 50 or so out of 500 is now down to 33. So, a pretty significant drop. What does that mean? Is that, you know, the future? So, I worry about that, but I will also echo Lynell’s point about, so, it’ll become, hopefully, less rare, even though that’s, you know, on the fence, and secondly, it’s so important to take care of ourselves, whatever, you know, in healthy ways, in healthy ways.

00:32:32 Rachel Westerfield:
And healthy ways in that you have your own board of directors, you have your own crew.

00:32:37 Verna Williams:
You have your own crew. You have your own board of advisors, your own kitchen cabinet. You’ve got your sisters who are doing the same jobs in different organizations or different spheres, because no matter what the sector, there’s going to be similarities,  absolutely. Absolutely. 

You seek those people out and you make sure you have community. That, I found, has been essential, in addition to your own personal community, because I find, at times like this, you know, my family, my friends, you know, that they really anchor me and help me.

00:33:22 Michele Goodwin:
There was so much to unpack in this interview, the stereotypes, and likely, you’ve heard of them, such as the angry Black woman, who’s stigmatized as being too opinionated or difficult to get along with, or there’s the stinging minstrel-era caretaker, known as mammy. Here’s Al Jolson, in Blackface, singing his signature tune in the finale of The Jazz Singer, a 1927 film. It was considered a great performance, mammy.

00:33:59 Al Jolson:

Mammy, Mammy, the sun shines East, the sun shines West, but I know where the sun shines best. Mammy, mammy, my heartstrings are tangled around Alabammy.

00:34:33 Michele Goodwin:

A Jezebel documentary short offers even more insight.

00:34:39 Jezebel:

Mammies can be traced all the way back to slavery. Their persona suggested Black women were happy to serve.

00:34:46 Jezebel:

Then I’ll take my nap.

00:34:47 Jezebel:

That’s a good little girl.

00:34:49 Jezebel:

They didn’t need citizenship and voting rights. They were content with their lesser social status in America. We asked Dr. Kimberly Wallace-Sanders to explain.

00:34:59 Dr. Kimberly Wallace-Sanders:

After the Civil War, mammy was the transitional object that the country really began to cling to, particularly in the South, look at the Black mammy, look at her taking care of our children.

00:35:10 Michele Goodwin:

Indeed, for many, mammy was the first Black woman they recognized in the workplace and likely in their homes, too, the first image in motion pictures, the first Academy Award earned by a Black woman was for playing the role of mammy in the 1939 film, Gone With the Wind. The brilliant Hattie McDaniel played the enduring, selfless maid in that film and did so in nearly 100 films.

00:35:45 Vivien Leigh:

Oh, mammy, mammy.

00:35:50 Hattie McDaniel:

You’ve been brave so long, Miss Scarlett. You just got to go on being brave. Think about your pa like he used to be.

00:35:59 Vivien Leigh:

I can’t think about pa. I can’t think of anything but that 300 dollars.

00:36:03 Hattie McDaniel:

Ain’t no good thinking about that. Miss Scarlett, ain’t nobody got that much money, nobody but Yankees and Scalawags got that much money now.

00:36:13 Vivien Leigh:

Rhett.

00:36:13 Hattie McDaniel:

Who that? A Yankee?

00:36:20 Vivien Leigh:

Oh, oh, mammy, I’m so, so thin and pale, and I haven’t any clothes. Scoot up to the attic, mammy, and get down ma’s old box of dress patterns.

00:36:40 Hattie McDaniel:

What you up to in Miss Ellen’s portière?

00:36:40 Vivien Leigh:

You’re going to make me a new dress.

00:36:44 Hattie McDaniel:

Not with Miss Ellen’s portières. Not while I got breath in my body.

00:36:45 Vivien Leigh:

Great balls of fire. They’re my portieres now. I’m going to Atlanta for that 300 dollars, and I’ve got to go looking like a queen.

00:36:52 Hattie McDaniel:

Who’s going to Atlanta with you?

00:36:53 Vivien Leigh:

I’m going alone.

00:36:53 Hattie McDaniel:

That’s what you think. I’m going to Atlanta with you, with you and that new dress.

00:36:59 Vivien Leigh:

Now, mammy darling…

00:37:00 Hattie McDaniel:

No use to try to sweet-talk me, Miss Scarlett. I knows you ever since I put the first pair of diapers on you. I said I was going to Atlanta with you, and going I is.

00:37:08 Michele Goodwin:

Now, to be clear, Ms. McDaniel didn’t speak like that in real life, but it was the way in which Hollywood, and seemingly the nation, felt comfortable with Black women. It was their place and role to be the constant caretaker and constantly subservient. 

What Lynell, Rachel, and Verna shared with me is that there is considerable hurt, embarrassment, and shaming that Black women too often experience in the workplace, expected to downplay their intelligence and ambition, stereotyped as being unqualified, and then, there’s the gaslighting from their bosses, and the microaggressions and macroaggressions from colleagues and sometimes the people that they supervise, and all of this is quite real. Here’s Lynell.

00:38:06 Lynell Cadray:

I’ve been reading this book called I’m Not Yelling, which is by Elizabeth Leiba, I think is her name, and it’s a Black woman’s guide to sort of how to navigate the work space, because we’re often misperceived as yelling when we’re speaking in confident tones or when we’re giving directives, which we all have to do, and so, anytime I hear…anytime anyone says that Lynell’s angry, they really don’t understand me, because I don’t really get angry.

And so, it really, I think that’s a pressure that people are putting up on us that we don’t have to accept, and it doesn’t mean that we have to change the way we behave because that’s basically what they’re asking us to do, change the way you speak, change the way you walk into the room, change the way you think about things, because you’re angry.

And so, I think we have to be courageous enough to push back on some of that, and we also have to be able to be our authentic selves. Now, I’ve had people say to me you don’t really want me to bring my authentic self to the workplace, right? So, we always have to make sure that we’re in tune with who we are and what we’re doing, but we have to practice being able to be ourselves.

00:39:34 Verna Williams:
I think that means, too, though, we should be able to get angry, and there are going to be things that happen in the workplace that make you angry, and you should be able to express that. I mean, and I say that as somebody who’s been told, now, see, this is why I don’t like to tell you stuff, because you get mad, and I can’t talk to you. And it’s just like, you know, what you’re saying to me…and here’s why I’m angry.

Here’s what’s making me angry about this, you know, to explain that to that person, and I think I was justified in my anger, and I think, you know, any other person in my position would probably have that same reaction. So, I think…I mean, it’s a trap. You know, we’re supposed to, you know, just smile and grin and bear it, you know, or think of ways to make it okay for everybody else, and I think, to your point, Lynell, just be authentic, and sometimes, you’re mad, and you can say it, I’m mad about it, and you know, you see what happens.

00:40:42 Rachel Westerfield:

So, the stereotypes that you mentioned, Michele, I think, at least in my experience, the Black women who I have had the pleasure of watching, you know, as mentors, they do have this natural sense of empathy and this natural warmth that endears at least me to them, and I think that it’s easy to assign the role of mother to someone who makes you feel like you can bring, you know, your highs and your lows to them.

You can have real conversations with them. But it is also tough because you want that person to remain a soft space, and when that person has a bad day, or a bad conversation, or wants to express anything that is unpleasant, you try to box that person in, and that’s when I think you start to hear angry Black woman is, well, you’re now trying to escape this box of mother that I have checked for you to be in.

And when you leave that space, it makes me uncomfortable, and I don’t know how to interact with you when you’re behaving this way. Meanwhile, a colleague could express the exact same sentiment, but because they’re a white male or just not a Black woman, you receive it differently, and you know, I heard someone mention the idea of authenticity, and that is so tantamount to how I show up in all of these spaces at work.

I think it’s important to be brave and name the bad behavior when you see the bad behavior, and you know, well, maybe it’s not during the meeting, but it certainly can be after the meeting, you know, having these authentic conversations and letting people know that you’re not afraid to stand up for yourself, and come in with data and examples of why you’ve been led to feel this way.

You know, and I think that the more authentic you are in that way, the more difficult it does become for people to just label you as angry and write off your emotional experiences at work because you are a human being, you know, and I think that, you know, just keeping people honest and employing as much tact as possible in how you describe your feelings to someone else can really go a long way.

00:43:01 Michele Goodwin:

If you’re just joining me now, we are talking about Black women in leadership. All women face challenges, or can face challenges, in the workplace, from pay inequity, sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and stereotypes about their capacities and capabilities. Much has been written about this, and of course, there have been so many lawsuits over decades and centuries.

We’ve heard the slurs and the weaponization of the term DEI. It’s become a kind of scapegoat for things that ail the workplace and ail America. For Black women, there’s been an intergenerational challenge, put to work long, arduous hours, and then stereotyped as lazy, literally charting pathways to the moon as human computers for NASA, but then stereotyped as unintelligent.

I wanted to touch on a third stereotype, the superwoman, the woman who has to do it all, and carries tremendous weight on her shoulders. Here’s Rachel Westerfield, a senior leader at the tech company, Slack.

00:44:17 Rachel Westerfield:

You were talking earlier, Michele, about, you know, your grandmother saying that you do have to be twice as good as anyone else just to even get to the table, and I think, you know, at least coming up, for me, there were so many expectations on me, from family and not wanting to disappoint them, and then also getting to the table, you know, in academia or at work, just having these expectations of myself that I’m not allowed to falter and that, you know, any blunder will follow me until my final days.

And I think that it does kind of give you a bit of a superwoman complex there or living up to a certain expectation that is even bigger in your head than it is for the people around you, and so, I think that that can certainly contribute to how you think you need to show up.

And then all the expectations of the people around you, at work or in your family, of how you continue keeping this face and continue to just carry that torch almost seem not even quite human with how, you know, the level of expectation of how you’re supposed to react or not react in certain situations and remain strong, regardless of how you experience things or how things make you feel. That’s my initial thought.

00:45:49 Verna Williams:

What Rachel’s comment also made me think of that movie Inside Out 2, where Anxiety makes an appearance, and I think sometimes anxiety, that cultivating an image of being that perfect person, feeling that pressure, I think sometimes that’s a protective mechanism. Like, if I act this way, then everything will be all right, and so, it’s a way of, you know, moving forward, and you know, so that you’re not disappointing yourself, you’re not disappointing your family.

And you’re the image of what you think everybody is expecting of you, as a leader, but the difficulty of that, even though it’s about, you know, helping you feel secure in that position, it’s not authentic. Sometimes, it’s not authentic, and it’s difficult to maintain, and there are times when you really do need to be, you know, you can’t be superwoman. There are just so many things going on. You’ve got to be yourself.

00:46:56 Rachel Westerfield:

Yeah. It’s hard.

00:46:58 Verna Williams:

Yeah, it’s…

00:46:59 Lynell Cadray:

To lift up the building.

00:47:01 Verna Williams:
Right. Right.

00:47:02 Lynell Cadray:

To lift up the planet.

00:47:03 Verna Williams:

Right, and you shouldn’t have to. We shouldn’t have to do that.

00:47:07 Lynell Cadray:

Right. Right.

00:47:10 Verna Williams:

And that’s what our boards of directors, our personal boards of directors, our sisters in this, they help us to carry that weight, and they’re safe, those safe spaces where we can be ourselves, but I also, I think it is important for people to know, the people you work with, look, I’m human, I am not your superwoman, I need you to work with me to get these things done, because we are a team, we are a team.

00:47:48 Michele Goodwin:
I reached my time with Lynell, Rachel, and Verna. As they noted, being kind to colleagues doesn’t mean that your door is always open or that it always has to be open whenever colleagues want you to fix something for them. 

It does not mean that you’ve been unprofessional by being able to point out the flaws in how a project got done. That’s not angry. That’s just simply being a smart leader in a business environment. Our time ended, thinking about silver linings, and I asked each of  them about a message of hope.

00:48:30 Rachel Westerfield:

I always think that it’s just…it’s so incredible to find community and hear, you know, how affirming, as you said, Michele, these types of conversations can be. The silver lining for me is that regardless of how many issues that we’ve all see in, you know, all of the external factors that we have to take into account, walking into every single conversation, is that we do have this incredible toolbox that we can pull from, because of all of the expectations that have been placed on us to date, right?

So, without even comparing ourselves to our, you know, white or otherwise counterparts, you know, we are at a very special place in how we have learned how to navigate through these really difficult environments, and so, whether it’s our grandparents in our ears, whether it’s our board of directors, who are, you know, in our corner, cheering us on, or the colleagues that we have found community in at work, I think we just have the ability to pull on all these things.

Plus the expectations that have been placed on us and that we’ve placed on ourselves to know how to continue being, you know, these spectacular leaders, and I also think that we have the really great opportunity to mentor people, you know, who are trying to come up through the ranks, as well, and we have this really great set of skills to be able to do that and help them navigate, and help them ask questions that maybe others didn’t help us ask, and start encouraging that level of authenticity that I do think that…

I think that the workplace can be ready to hear, you know, that they weren’t ready to hear before. So, just encouraging that fresh look and the ability to really own how you’re feeling, going forward, and stop being apologetic, and stop second-guessing yourself. I think that’s the silver lining that we can really step into those shoes.

00:50:44 Michele Goodwin:

And then for Lynell, for you? What do you see?

00:50:45 Lynell Cadray:
You know, I love that because I think it’s women who have the capacity to inspire other women, and I always think, at the end of the day, that we’re sort of these joyful warriors, you know? We’re good at what we do. We work hard. We smile hard. We’re confident. We’re energetic. And I think that’s what people struggle with, but that’s what inspires us to keep going. And so, that’s the way I like to think of us. I like to think of us as joyful warriors who can beat this and who can move forward, successfully, with each other.

00:51:27 Michele Goodwin:

And then, for you, Verna. What is the silver lining?

00:51:29 Verna Williams:

I find the silver lining is that what Lynell was saying, so just picking up on both points from Lynell and Rachel. First, we are modeling a different way of being leaders, and I think that that is going to have an impact, down the road, into a positive impact in terms of how leadership manifests itself, both in the guise of the leadership as well as the style of the leadership. And so, that makes me optimistic.

The other thing that makes me optimistic is the people coming up. So, you know, there are a lot of people, right now, that are in the pipeline. When I look at, you know, our fellows and how they’re so dedicated to making a difference, and how young people, you know, they are still going into law school because they want to make a difference. That makes me feel really hopeful.

00:52:21 Michele Goodwin:

Guests and listeners, that’s it for today’s episode of On the Issues, with Michele Goodwin, at Ms. Magazine. I want to thank each of you for tuning in for the full story and engaging with us. We hope you’ll join us again for our next episode, where you know we’ll be reporting, rebelling, and telling it just like it is. 

For more information about what we discussed today, head to MsMagazine.com, and be sure to subscribe, and if you believe, as we do, that women’s voices matter, that equality for all persons cannot be delayed, and that rebuilding America and being unbought and unbossed and reclaiming our time are important, then be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to On the Issues with Michele Goodwin at Ms. Magazine in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, wherever it is that you receive your podcasts. 

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This has been your host, Michele Goodwin, reporting, rebelling, and telling it just like it is. On the Issues with Michele Goodwin is a Ms. Magazine joint production. Michele Goodwin and Kathy Spillar are our executive producers. Our producers for this episode are Roxy Szal, Oliver Haug, and also Allison Whelan. Our social media content producer is Sophia Panigrahi. The creative vision behind our work includes art and design by Brandi Phipps, editing by Natalie Hadland, and music by Chris J. Lee.