The Respectable Black Woman at Work

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Both men and women of color experience racial hostility in the workplace. So, many black and brown men will probably relate to much of what I will say in the forthcoming paragraphs. I hope that men of color will confidently share your experiences in the workplace after you read this post! However, women of color suffer a double portion of that hostility because of our race and gender.

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diane.

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I find myself disappointed that this will be the final post in our “She Did That” series. Alas, this is the last week of Women’s History Month for this year. I began this series as a tool of historical reclamation. American History teaches us far too little about women. American History is teaching us far too little about the contributions of women of color to the rights and freedoms many of us take for granted today. I believe that this loss of the stories of women is both an act of unintentional historical amnesia and an active and intentional attempt to disempower women by rendering our words, actions, bodies, and minds invisible.

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She Did That! A Women's History Month Series

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In honor of women and all the contributions we make to the world, I will highlight four African American women in my blog posts this month who made contributions to American History. I will call this short series “She Did That!” By no means do these women represent all the black women who have made and are making substantial contributions to American history. I understand that this sort of practice of naming “exemplars” of the race and gender still obscures so many women and their stories. The movie (and book) Hidden Figures which chronicles the lives of three black women who worked for NASA during the mid-twentieth century has aptly named the conundrum of womanhood (and black womanhood in particular). That is, the general public does not recognize our valuable contributions, and sometimes they even go unrecognized by our teammates and coworkers. I hope that in many posts to come, I can celebrate so many of these hidden figures of our past and present.

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