Race-Gendered Profiling in Employment

Because we aren’t discriminated against the same way

My Father studied Civil Engineering in his own time. He had a keen understanding of how things worked. It didn’t matter what it was: electronics, buildings, or even cars. He saw in ways that most people couldn’t. I used to call him Mr. Fix-it because he could literally (no exaggeration) fix everything.

When it came time to assemble things, he would invite my Siblings and me to participate. It was one of those things we did together.

He was also exceptional in Math and Physics. I mean, Ph.D. level good (again, no exaggeration). And he wanted the same for my siblings and me. So, you can imagine; it was expected of us to excel in the field of STEM. Regardless of our gender. Because only one of us — apart from my Father — was Male.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the abbreviation, STEM, it means Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

I wish I could say that I have his exceptionality, as it pertains to Math and Physics (I am good, but not exceptional). I, however, have a thorough appreciation for both fields, and realized my knack in some technical fields. Like programming.

In the society I was born into, and even here in the West, women pursuing or entering the field of STEM, are often ridiculed. Or given a hard time. Or undermined. This is exacerbated when you are both a Woman and are of African descent.

I cannot begin to count how many times I have been suggested — both implicitly and explicitly — to enter the following fields: Nursing, Social Work, Executive Assistant, Communications, etc. I am likely race-gendered-ly profiled when such suggestions are made to me. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with these fields; it is simply the fact that there is an overrepresentation of those who possess my likeness in those types of roles. That is, women who are of African descent. Nowadays, I wonder whether their decision to enter those fields was as a result of it being normalized and systemically encouraged; whether it is because it has been conditioned upon them to believe that these are the types of fields they are good for, and perhaps, others preceding them followed the same path, or whether it is because they have a genuine interest in that field.

A study by Yoder and Schleicher (1996) discovered that, when women were narrated as being the top of their class in gender-deviant fields, such as electronic engineering, she was more likely to be berated. Her femininity was also more likely to be attacked. This concluded that women pursuing gender atypical roles were more likely to be persecuted for doing so.

Furthermore, another study among undergraduate students demonstrated that, when women applied for gender-atypical roles, with identical resumes to their male counterparts, their male counterparts are more likely to be regarded as more qualified for the role, when the participant took the perspective of the applicant (Harvie, Marshall-Mcaskey and Johnston, 2006).

Additionally, social theory suggests that women and men are perceived differently because of the roles they occupy in society, along with specific characteristics attributed to those roles. Therefore, when a Woman vies for a leadership role; according to social theory, because this role is considered male-specific, along with the fact that certain characteristics attributed to Men are associated with leadership roles, women are more likely to be considered incompatible or incapable of occupying that role. In other words, there is a negative bias for women when they vie for a leadership role — as well as the fact that they are perceived more negatively when they do (Eagly and Diekman, 2005). As stated by the researchers,

This perceived incompatibility between stereotypes of a social group and the requirements for fulfilling a specific role is supposed to result in prejudice, backlash effects (Rudman, 1998), and low evaluations of women as actual or potential leaders (see Eagly and Karau, 2002).

In a similar vein, Gruber, Veidt, and Ortner (2018) argued that leadership emergence in females and males are affected by status beliefs. Society ascribes more worthiness and trustworthiness of competence to men, rather than women, and that in smaller workgroups, this lowers the emergence of leadership characteristics in women. Furthermore, another study using eye-tracking devices noticed that, when participants viewed recorded meetings of emergent leaders in comparison with their non-leaders, participants were more likely to fixate on the emergent leaders in the meeting, and more likely to pay attention to male than female emergent leaders (Gerpott, Lehmann-Willenbrock, Silvis, and Vugt, 2018).

Another study by Garcia-Retamero and Lopez-Zafra (2006) found that, women who applied for a leadership position in industries atypical to their gender, were more likely to experience prejudice than women who applied for leadership roles more typical to their gender. Ironically, women and older participants were more likely to be prejudiced against women who applied for leadership roles in gender-atypical industries, than men and younger participants (Garcia-Retamero et al, 2018).

At this point, you might be thinking that most of this research is gender-based. And you would be right. And it can be argued that while not explicitly stated, most of this research might presumably consist of men and women of European descent. What if you include race into the mix?

While the research is not as extensive or robust, a recent research conducted by Rattan, Steele and Ambady (2017), found that, among women of Asian descent; when their race — not their gender — was highlighted when applying for gender-atypical roles, such as in computer programming, they were likely to be viewed as more skilled, competent, and deserving of higher pay, than when their gender was made more salient. This can be corroborated with the research publication of Women in the Workplace, which showed that Asian women are more likely to be encouraged, and more likely to receive promotions, compared to other races of women. It should be mentioned, however, that the ethnicity of Asian used in the study (i.e., from Rattan et al., 2017) was East Asian, that is, of Chinese ancestry.

Furthermore, another research demonstrated that, apart from gender, when it came to job performance evaluations of Managers who were very successful on the job, those of African descent were more likely to have their job performance attributed to help from others, rather than their actual ability on the job, thereby affecting their career advancement, compared to their European-descent counterparts. The same went for women’s performance appraisal who were high performers on the job, in which their performance is less likely to be attributed to their ability compared to men (Greenhaus and Parasuraman, 1993). These findings are once again corroborated by the Woman in the Workplace publication, which demonstrated an overall lower promotion rate of women in comparison to men in the workplace, and an even lower promotion rate of Women of African descent in the workplace, compared to other races of Women.

Of course, I can keep going, providing more bodies of research demonstrating that not only gender, but racial biases in employment, especially as it pertains to gender-atypical roles, affect employment outcomes. But I’ve established my point.

I would go further to say that, apart from gender-atypical roles, there are also race-gender roles ascribed to groups where their race and gender intersect. And when one, particularly those who are marginalized both gender and race-wise (such as Women of African descent/Black Women), attempt to occupy roles determined incongruent for their own kind, they are more likely to experience prejudice for doing so.

Of course, this is just my theory, but I bet you it’s true.