What do you think?
Rate this book
Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity
In Our Separate Ways, authors Ella Bell and Stella Nkomo take an unflinching look at the surprising differences between black and white women's trials and triumphs on their way up the corporate ladder. Based on groundbreaking research that spanned eight years, Our Separate Ways compares and contrasts the experiences of 120 black and white female managers in the American business arena. In-depth histories bring to life the women's powerful and often difficult journeys from childhood to professional success, highlighting the roles that gender, race, and class played in their development.
Although successful professional women come from widely diverse family backgrounds, educational experiences, and community values, they share a common assumption upon entering the I have a chance. Along the way, however, they discover that people question their authority, challenge their intelligence, and discount their ideas. And while gender is a common denominator among these women, race and class are often wedges between them.
In Our Separate Ways, you will find candid discussions about stereotypes, learn how black women's early experiences affect their attitudes in the business world, become aware of how white women have--perhaps unwittingly--aligned themselves more often with white men than with black women, and see ways that our country continues to come to terms with diversity in all of its dimensions.
Whether you are a human resources director wondering why you're having trouble retaining black women, a white female manager considering the role of race in your office, or a black female manager searching for perspectives, you will find fresh insights about how black and white women's struggles differ and encounter provocative ideas for creating a better workplace environment for everyone.
Although successful professional women come from widely diverse family backgrounds, educational experiences, and community values, they share a common assumption upon entering the I have a chance. Along the way, however, they discover that people question their authority, challenge their intelligence, and discount their ideas. And while gender is a common denominator among these women, race and class are often wedges between them.
In Our Separate Ways, you will find candid discussions about stereotypes, learn how black women's early experiences affect their attitudes in the business world, become aware of how white women have--perhaps unwittingly--aligned themselves more often with white men than with black women, and see ways that our country continues to come to terms with diversity in all of its dimensions.
Whether you are a human resources director wondering why you're having trouble retaining black women, a white female manager considering the role of race in your office, or a black female manager searching for perspectives, you will find fresh insights about how black and white women's struggles differ and encounter provocative ideas for creating a better workplace environment for everyone.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
12 people are currently reading
442 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 28, 2008
Generally books of this genre - that is business books, which evaluate the history, case examples, and learnings about the work experiences of various groups, can be dry. Not so with Edmondson Bell and Nkomo's OUr Separate Ways. The book was not only beautifully written, but it also captured the nuances of being a Black womyn pursuing a professional career in the U.S.
The book would have been a five for me, if it had not ended so abruptly, and had it offered a few more conclusions toward the end. That said, I felt so inspired by the book, that I've started a book club of sorts for it.
I would strongly recommend this book.
The book would have been a five for me, if it had not ended so abruptly, and had it offered a few more conclusions toward the end. That said, I felt so inspired by the book, that I've started a book club of sorts for it.
I would strongly recommend this book.
August 12, 2011
Fascinating read and well written. I met Dr. Ella Bell at a Xerox event a few weeks ago, she was an excellent speaker.
November 4, 2012
Feminist arguments maintain the existence of the glass ceiling as an impediment to women securing the C-Suites of corporate America (Eagley & Carli, 2007; Kellerman & Rhode, 2007). For women of color, impediments to success not only involve an overhead transparent layer of sexism, but also a concrete wall constructed of racism that holds up that ceiling. These racial barriers encapsulate 1) the limited number of black women in positions of corporate leadership; 2) racial and gender positioning in relation to corporate inclusiveness, assistance, and mobility; and 3) corporate hierarchy with black women at the bottom. As a result, black women are often overlooked in terms of career and promotional opportunities leading to the C-Suite even while black women are the largest number of minority of women holding management positions (Bell & Nkomo, 2001).
Our Separate Ways asks readers and researchers to look deeper into the demographics of corporate America’s C-Suites. While historically accurate that while men hold a majority of executive positions, C-Suites are also disproportionately occupied by white women compared to black men and black women. Bell, an associate professor of business administration at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and founder of ASCENT-Leading Multicultural Women to the Top, and Nkomo, Professor in the Department of Human Resource Management at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, note that within these ranks “[t]he stories of black women were just not there” (Bell & Nkomo, 2001, p. 11). Being representatively absent ignores the understanding that black women’s experiences are different from the experiences of white women. In other words, black women are grouped with white women in terms of discussion of advancement experiences. As Bell and Nkomo prove, this is a reductionist and inaccurate definition of reality.
The authors’ objective in writing this book is to specifically address the topic of American women’s successful corporate leadership through a process of comparison and contrast of positions held by black and white women. Premised on the feminist theoretical concept of intersectionality – a concept explained by the authors as interlocking, interactive, and dynamic systems of race, gender, and class (Bell & Nkomo, 2001) – within a qualitative study, the authors conducted in-depth, life history interviews with a specifically targeted segment of women corporate executives, representing a wide variety of private-sector organizations. The study purposefully over-represents black female executives. Conducted in this manner, the researchers are able to demonstrate to their audience that a woman is not the sum of what is apparent or currently known, but is shaped into the person she becomes by making sense of encountered situations in their own lives, specifically impacts of race and ethnicity. These interviews were supplemented by a survey of 825 black and white women managers in order to establish themes and patterns that are directly relayed the participants’ narratives.
Fostering narratives, that is, giving women the ability to tell their own histories in their own words, gives the authors the ability to give 1) visibility and voice to normally unseen, underrepresented, or silenced individuals, namely black women; and 2) reflection of usually invisible stereotypes. The result is a collage of professional women’s lives representing a range of socio-economic backgrounds. It is important to note backgrounds of poverty and, at times abuse, were experienced by both black and white participants. In contrast, white women most often described their familial environments as insular, or without the assistance of extended family members, community, or social activism, whereas black women noted the presence of expanded family, community, and civil rights supports. Yet all had in some form received encouragement from either a parent or a close family member, and a held desire to be independent. Furthermore, black and white women overcoming these obstacles, eventually obtaining the career successes they now claim (even while most participants never originally aspired to such management careers), experience two similar professional cultural contexts despite being black or white: “one the culture of resistance, and the other the culture of individualism” (Bell and Nkomo, 2001, p. 36). These are profound similarities; however differences do emerge that ultimately gives black women greater voice while at the same time white women’s voices are silenced (Bell and Nkomo, 2001, p. 215).
White participants whose upbringing was more privileged described a set of foundational circumstances that fostered the ability to be successful (e.g., support, material resources, etc.) without having to notice or question their own race or ethnicity. A system in which being white is invisible and unquestioned even by whites because it is seen as the norm. Thus difficulty arises in assumptions made by white female executives that all women in comparable professional positions have had similar paths and were provided similar opportunities despite race or ethnicity. In other words, white female executives falsely and blindly see black female colleagues as being on the same gendered playing field, when in fact there is a hierarchy in upbringing directly connected to race and ethnicity that dramatically impacts the play on the field. This blinder ultimately inhibits communication between black and white female colleagues. It is a gap in a frame of reference that divides women holding executive positions rather than unites them. Instead, career-oriented white women executives accept the individualistic corporate culture at a nondiscriminatory face value. These women believe the glass ceiling can be shattered by a shared race within the predominately white male setting that will extend to them successful privileges and benefits if they only work as hard as their male counterparts.
Black women often face situations in excess of those typified by the glass ceiling. Racially, ethnically, and culturally, black women may feel pressure to remain completely allied with the black community despite their privileged socio-economic status (either born into or through their career). Overt or discrete racism, gender and racial discrimination, and sexism hampering “fit” within their predominantly white work cultures constructing a concrete wall under the glass ceiling, fuels this alignment. In essence, “black women met more resistance” (Bell & Nkomo, 2001, p. 119) than white women and are cognizant of the racism they will encounter, knowing that they have to outperform their white colleagues, male and female, to achieve success. Overall, black women are adept at keeping their professional lives (which includes intermingling with “tolerant” white individuals in and around the corporate setting) separate from their personal lives (which encompasses black community involvement/mentoring and close black friendships).
Bell and Nkomo establish a substantive argument that black and white corporate women’s experiences are different. It is certain that for women of color, they cannot simply be women. Nor can women of color compete on a level playing field with white men or white women. There are very real obstacles that preclude entrance of a black woman into a C-Suite. In the 11 years since this book was written, we have seen certain gains. We now have a high-profile woman of color heading Coca-Cola, for instance. Yet, these successes do seem exceptional rather than normative. Women in general have made and are making gains, as women are the gender graduating college in record numbers. Women are part and parcel of the business world and are taking measures to ensure they have a voice and equal opportunity. But this begs the question that has been part and parcel of women and leadership theory: what’s next?
We have claimed the disparities. Indeed the disparities have been writ large. Yet, the topic and subsequent arguments regarding women and leadership have stagnated and become tired. As with other, more current, writing on the topic, success remains defined in terms of the corporate setting (Eagley & Carli, 2007; Kellerman & Rhode, 2007) and this is questionable for two reasons: 1) success has been synonymous with occupation of a C-Suite in a Fortune 500 company, which hardly defines success for all women; and 2) corporate white men originally established this definition – the very men with whom women seek parity. Such a definition only reifies the power women seek to upend. Within this definition, women have no choice but to become the men who perpetrate the sexism.
I believe Bell and Nkomo have possibly raised a couple of points that require further exploration and can enhance the tired theory. First, black women, though few in number, have achieved success by their standards without blindly accepting or conforming to prevalent corporate culture. Black women, at least the participants in this study, have maintained a strong sense of self and purpose that is somewhat racially and sexually in tact compared to their white female colleagues. Second, the black women colluded with the corporate culture knowingly and as needed to advance their careers while still benefitting the women or other blacks coming behind them. In other words, these black women may have a new way of looking at women and leadership that does not reify the power and hierarchies in place.
The above points do not mean that the concept presented by Bell and Nkomo is without criticism. For example, I increasingly became disturbed by the authors’ physical descriptions of the women accompanying each history. While the authors promoted a negative connotation toward a narrative by a female executive who received advice on dress, topics of discussion, and emotive behavior from male colleagues (Bell & Nkomo, 2001, p. 140), this standard of appropriate looks and demeanor was subsequently reified and substantiated as necessary by the authors’ physical descriptions of the study participants.
Another question raised is the non-clarification of identities within the study. Individual identity flows along many tracks and not all those tracks are represented here. These identities include lesbian or transgendered identities that may impact women’s career opportunities. There is also the concentration on what is visible race – meaning women of color who do not look of color – and who is allowed to claim identity. While there are issues of “passing” raised by Bell and Nkomo, there are also instances where a white-looking individual is not allowed to claim her race or ethnicity because she is not the “correct” identifying color, thus struggling with the disconnection and ostracism from the women of color with whom she would like to identify.
The last question raised is whether or not the interaction between women of color and their communities extended to ground-level employees (e.g., security, maintenance, cafeteria workers, etc.) who are typically people of color. In other words, are there circumstances wherein corporate hierarchy supersedes racial identity in terms of interaction?
Raising these questions in no way takes away from the rich contribution made by Bell and Nkomo. This is a book appealing and beneficial to a wide, diverse audience outside of academia. Rather these questions enhance what has already been stated in order to determine if there is theory and practice that can tear down the concrete wall and shatter the glass ceiling. For Bell and Nkomo have not yet determined that such demolition is possible, only that not all women should be homogenized in relation to the topic of women and leadership. Bell and Nkomo present us with possibilities for further inquiry that can push forward a rather tired and sluggish topic.
_________________________________
References
Bell, E. L. J. E., & Nkomo, S. M. (2001). Our separate ways: Black and white women and the struggle for professional identity. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Eagly, A. H., Carli, L. L. (2007). Through the labyrinth: The truth about how women become leaders. Boston, Mass. : Harvard Business School Press, c2007
Kellerman, B. & Rhode, D. (2007). Women and leadership: The state of play and strategies for change. San Francisco, CA : Jossey-Bass
Our Separate Ways asks readers and researchers to look deeper into the demographics of corporate America’s C-Suites. While historically accurate that while men hold a majority of executive positions, C-Suites are also disproportionately occupied by white women compared to black men and black women. Bell, an associate professor of business administration at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and founder of ASCENT-Leading Multicultural Women to the Top, and Nkomo, Professor in the Department of Human Resource Management at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, note that within these ranks “[t]he stories of black women were just not there” (Bell & Nkomo, 2001, p. 11). Being representatively absent ignores the understanding that black women’s experiences are different from the experiences of white women. In other words, black women are grouped with white women in terms of discussion of advancement experiences. As Bell and Nkomo prove, this is a reductionist and inaccurate definition of reality.
The authors’ objective in writing this book is to specifically address the topic of American women’s successful corporate leadership through a process of comparison and contrast of positions held by black and white women. Premised on the feminist theoretical concept of intersectionality – a concept explained by the authors as interlocking, interactive, and dynamic systems of race, gender, and class (Bell & Nkomo, 2001) – within a qualitative study, the authors conducted in-depth, life history interviews with a specifically targeted segment of women corporate executives, representing a wide variety of private-sector organizations. The study purposefully over-represents black female executives. Conducted in this manner, the researchers are able to demonstrate to their audience that a woman is not the sum of what is apparent or currently known, but is shaped into the person she becomes by making sense of encountered situations in their own lives, specifically impacts of race and ethnicity. These interviews were supplemented by a survey of 825 black and white women managers in order to establish themes and patterns that are directly relayed the participants’ narratives.
Fostering narratives, that is, giving women the ability to tell their own histories in their own words, gives the authors the ability to give 1) visibility and voice to normally unseen, underrepresented, or silenced individuals, namely black women; and 2) reflection of usually invisible stereotypes. The result is a collage of professional women’s lives representing a range of socio-economic backgrounds. It is important to note backgrounds of poverty and, at times abuse, were experienced by both black and white participants. In contrast, white women most often described their familial environments as insular, or without the assistance of extended family members, community, or social activism, whereas black women noted the presence of expanded family, community, and civil rights supports. Yet all had in some form received encouragement from either a parent or a close family member, and a held desire to be independent. Furthermore, black and white women overcoming these obstacles, eventually obtaining the career successes they now claim (even while most participants never originally aspired to such management careers), experience two similar professional cultural contexts despite being black or white: “one the culture of resistance, and the other the culture of individualism” (Bell and Nkomo, 2001, p. 36). These are profound similarities; however differences do emerge that ultimately gives black women greater voice while at the same time white women’s voices are silenced (Bell and Nkomo, 2001, p. 215).
White participants whose upbringing was more privileged described a set of foundational circumstances that fostered the ability to be successful (e.g., support, material resources, etc.) without having to notice or question their own race or ethnicity. A system in which being white is invisible and unquestioned even by whites because it is seen as the norm. Thus difficulty arises in assumptions made by white female executives that all women in comparable professional positions have had similar paths and were provided similar opportunities despite race or ethnicity. In other words, white female executives falsely and blindly see black female colleagues as being on the same gendered playing field, when in fact there is a hierarchy in upbringing directly connected to race and ethnicity that dramatically impacts the play on the field. This blinder ultimately inhibits communication between black and white female colleagues. It is a gap in a frame of reference that divides women holding executive positions rather than unites them. Instead, career-oriented white women executives accept the individualistic corporate culture at a nondiscriminatory face value. These women believe the glass ceiling can be shattered by a shared race within the predominately white male setting that will extend to them successful privileges and benefits if they only work as hard as their male counterparts.
Black women often face situations in excess of those typified by the glass ceiling. Racially, ethnically, and culturally, black women may feel pressure to remain completely allied with the black community despite their privileged socio-economic status (either born into or through their career). Overt or discrete racism, gender and racial discrimination, and sexism hampering “fit” within their predominantly white work cultures constructing a concrete wall under the glass ceiling, fuels this alignment. In essence, “black women met more resistance” (Bell & Nkomo, 2001, p. 119) than white women and are cognizant of the racism they will encounter, knowing that they have to outperform their white colleagues, male and female, to achieve success. Overall, black women are adept at keeping their professional lives (which includes intermingling with “tolerant” white individuals in and around the corporate setting) separate from their personal lives (which encompasses black community involvement/mentoring and close black friendships).
Bell and Nkomo establish a substantive argument that black and white corporate women’s experiences are different. It is certain that for women of color, they cannot simply be women. Nor can women of color compete on a level playing field with white men or white women. There are very real obstacles that preclude entrance of a black woman into a C-Suite. In the 11 years since this book was written, we have seen certain gains. We now have a high-profile woman of color heading Coca-Cola, for instance. Yet, these successes do seem exceptional rather than normative. Women in general have made and are making gains, as women are the gender graduating college in record numbers. Women are part and parcel of the business world and are taking measures to ensure they have a voice and equal opportunity. But this begs the question that has been part and parcel of women and leadership theory: what’s next?
We have claimed the disparities. Indeed the disparities have been writ large. Yet, the topic and subsequent arguments regarding women and leadership have stagnated and become tired. As with other, more current, writing on the topic, success remains defined in terms of the corporate setting (Eagley & Carli, 2007; Kellerman & Rhode, 2007) and this is questionable for two reasons: 1) success has been synonymous with occupation of a C-Suite in a Fortune 500 company, which hardly defines success for all women; and 2) corporate white men originally established this definition – the very men with whom women seek parity. Such a definition only reifies the power women seek to upend. Within this definition, women have no choice but to become the men who perpetrate the sexism.
I believe Bell and Nkomo have possibly raised a couple of points that require further exploration and can enhance the tired theory. First, black women, though few in number, have achieved success by their standards without blindly accepting or conforming to prevalent corporate culture. Black women, at least the participants in this study, have maintained a strong sense of self and purpose that is somewhat racially and sexually in tact compared to their white female colleagues. Second, the black women colluded with the corporate culture knowingly and as needed to advance their careers while still benefitting the women or other blacks coming behind them. In other words, these black women may have a new way of looking at women and leadership that does not reify the power and hierarchies in place.
The above points do not mean that the concept presented by Bell and Nkomo is without criticism. For example, I increasingly became disturbed by the authors’ physical descriptions of the women accompanying each history. While the authors promoted a negative connotation toward a narrative by a female executive who received advice on dress, topics of discussion, and emotive behavior from male colleagues (Bell & Nkomo, 2001, p. 140), this standard of appropriate looks and demeanor was subsequently reified and substantiated as necessary by the authors’ physical descriptions of the study participants.
Another question raised is the non-clarification of identities within the study. Individual identity flows along many tracks and not all those tracks are represented here. These identities include lesbian or transgendered identities that may impact women’s career opportunities. There is also the concentration on what is visible race – meaning women of color who do not look of color – and who is allowed to claim identity. While there are issues of “passing” raised by Bell and Nkomo, there are also instances where a white-looking individual is not allowed to claim her race or ethnicity because she is not the “correct” identifying color, thus struggling with the disconnection and ostracism from the women of color with whom she would like to identify.
The last question raised is whether or not the interaction between women of color and their communities extended to ground-level employees (e.g., security, maintenance, cafeteria workers, etc.) who are typically people of color. In other words, are there circumstances wherein corporate hierarchy supersedes racial identity in terms of interaction?
Raising these questions in no way takes away from the rich contribution made by Bell and Nkomo. This is a book appealing and beneficial to a wide, diverse audience outside of academia. Rather these questions enhance what has already been stated in order to determine if there is theory and practice that can tear down the concrete wall and shatter the glass ceiling. For Bell and Nkomo have not yet determined that such demolition is possible, only that not all women should be homogenized in relation to the topic of women and leadership. Bell and Nkomo present us with possibilities for further inquiry that can push forward a rather tired and sluggish topic.
_________________________________
References
Bell, E. L. J. E., & Nkomo, S. M. (2001). Our separate ways: Black and white women and the struggle for professional identity. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Eagly, A. H., Carli, L. L. (2007). Through the labyrinth: The truth about how women become leaders. Boston, Mass. : Harvard Business School Press, c2007
Kellerman, B. & Rhode, D. (2007). Women and leadership: The state of play and strategies for change. San Francisco, CA : Jossey-Bass
June 10, 2020
Cannot recommend a book more highly than this bit of research. The use of life history interviews made the findings incredibly compelling and did an excellent job demonstrating the ways in which gender, race and class intersect to further disadvantage or advantage individuals. I was particularly impressed with the way class was examined as this is often the least pronounced in intersectional research.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews