Happy Monday!
Hope everyone had a great week-end and is starting the first work week of May in good spirits…or barely open eyes, we know, it’s a process…Yet new day, new start, right?
As corporate sisters and minority women at work, this couldn’t hold truer. Being under-represented at work, suffering from a serious yet silenced identity crisis both within ourselves and our professional environments, every day for the professional, ambitious corporate sister is a new start, and a constant push against perceptions. Perceptions that Black and minority women are unsophisticated, inarticulate and aggressive. Perceptions that we may not possess the necessary professional qualifications. Perceptions, perceptions, perceptions…
And as much as we would like to blame society, the boss, or just plain everyone else around for the challenging professional cards we were dealt, it only takes one look around to realize that more has to be done to turn the situation around. Just turn on the television on Sunday night and watch the Real Housewives of Atlanta feed these same negative perceptions…Yes, RHOA is certainly not the only housewives show out there, yet it is one more negative perception magnet we did not exactly need…
In my career in the Big Corporate, I’ve felt at times that resisting and pushing against the barriers of perception is unavoidable, although not necessarily yielding the positive results we’d expect. That working hard would hardly prove enough. That only the right cosmic mix of unbiased, positive professional environments, combined with just the right mentoring influences, could propel some of us to the top. That if we keep pushing and striving and working, that we might also stand a chance…
Except that we no longer just merely want to stand a chance, or get a shot at success. In an era where women are reclaiming and owing their power, where we are now understanding that both our voices and contributions are valuable (and have always been), we want MORE!
More than a chance or incidental stab at success…More than a dim probability of success reserved for the chosen few.
We simply want to earn what we work for, perceptions or no perceptions!
Do you think it’s too much to ask for?
