Category: Civic Issues

This blog will be about the difficulties and obstacles that people of color face in college and in the workplace. The main issues talked about will be the double standards set up by society and the persisting challenges that follow people into the workforce.

Some people may view their ethnicity as a huge part of them, or just something that they happen to be. However, colleges, society, and the workplace place a high emphasis on it. I am sure we all filled out college applications that asked for our race, or maybe applied for a job that asked for it. It is such a hard line to walk, of saying that our race should not be a factor in decisions that can impact our life, but also seeing the need for it to make for a more diverse workplace. As of right now, according to WhoRulesAmerica, “White still make up 92.6% of the Fortune 500 CEOS. Only 1% of the Fortune 500 CEOs are African Americans, 2.4% are East Asians or South Asians, and 3.4% are Latinx.”  I honestly expected these percentages to be lower, but we need to do better as a society. It is discouraging to aspiring young men and women of color who may want to climb the ranks, that it is unusual but hopefully becoming more normalized.

Getting into the workplace also sets up for double standards, even from getting into college, creating a trickling effect of disadvantages. For example, standardized testing can be a defining factor of an application, and often people of color may not have access to the resources that others may have, such as tutoring programs or prep classes. According to USA Today, “Activists point to data that shows that richer, more privileged, children perform better on the SAT. This has led to allegations of cultural bias and systematic unfairness.” After this, say these students make it into college, and graduate, looking to enter the workforce. Another challenge is having the right connections. Some jobs are only accessible, or are easier to get, if you have connections. People of color may not have as many if any connections, especially if they are first generation college students, so already at the next level of their professional life people of color may be at a disadvantage.

In my Intro to Law class, we talked about an affirmative action case, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, which was about a white man who got denied admission into Medical School due to his race. I know this isn’t technically the workplace yet, but Med School leads into the workplace and it is still an area that many people of color are disadvantaged in. It is always interesting hearing cases such as these, because I do understand how if you qualified in all areas apart from your race, it can be frustrating to not get in, but at the same time sometimes White people do not understand that this is a struggle that many people of color face every day. Even though there has been one of the biggest drives for diversity recently, White people still dominate almost all professions. According to AAMC, “Among active physicians, 56.2% identified as White, 17.1% identified as Asian, 5.8% identified as Hispanic, and 5.0% identified as Black or African American.” Additionally, in the legal field according to the American Bar, “86% of all lawyers were non-Hispanic whites…5% of all lawyers are African American…5% of all lawyers are Hispanic…2% of all lawyers are Asians…and 0.4% of all lawyers are Native American.”

Evidently, there is quite a disparity between White people and people of color in the major fields of medicine and law. There is less of a gap between Whites and Asians, but the discrimination Asians have faced in the past 2 years due to the pandemic has been extreme. According to CNN, “In Australia, 66.4% of Asian Australian respondents to a survey last October reported experiencing workplace discrimination, which represented an increase of almost 15% in six months…Asian Australians also suffered a disproportionate drop in working hours last spring, which ‘was more than twice the drop’ for the rest of the population.” So there is not really a demographic that is not White that does not somehow suffer in the workplace. As a consequence, sometimes the care we receive is also impacted. Having more diversity in the workplace allows for more understanding and better care.

To go deeper into the categories of people of color, Asians, Blacks, and Hispanics are the main groups that are focused on in terms of diversity. Blacks debatably face more issues than almost any other group; in terms of diversity, according to Pewresearch, “Black and white STEM employees rate their employers’ commitment to this issue very differently. Roughly six-in-ten blacks (57%) working in a STEM job say their workplace pays too little attention to increasing racial and ethnic diversity. By comparison, just 15% of whites in this field say this. Majorities of whites, Hispanics, and Asians working in STEM think their workplace pays about the right attention to increasing racial and ethnic diversity.”

Going even deeper, black women are probably the most disadvantaged in terms of wages. According to AmericanProgress, “Black women are caught between bad jobs and widespread financial burdens…African American women also work in lower-paying jobs than Black men or white women, which translates to a particularly steep pay gap for Black women. Among those who worked full time all year in 2018, Black women earned 61.9 cents for every dollar that white men earned. In comparison, Black men earned 70.2 cents for every dollar earned by white men, and white women earned 78.6 cents.” Evidently, the pay gap is real and pressing, not just among women, but also for people of color. Opportunities, promotions, and benefits are offered very differently to people of color.

Additionally, there are discriminatory practices that each race faces. According to Brookings, “Asian American women experience racialized and gendered forms of sexual harassment that leads to isolation and results in exclusion from leadership opportunities. Latinas, too, find that coworkers may interact with them based on stereotypes that they are unintelligent or illegally in the country, depictions that then require extra work to disprove.” Not to mention being looked over, being talked over, being given less than one’s potential, the struggles are very real and frustrating for many in the workplace.

In conclusion, people of color may be at a disadvantage from college to professional school to the workplace, whether it is through opportunities, wages, or discriminatory practices. Through doing these blogs, there have been a lot of things confirmed for me, especially as an Asian American woman. However, I believe that the workplace is slowly but surely becoming more motivated to have a diverse workplace and a safe space for all of its employees. I have hope for the future.

 

https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/diversity_update_2020.html#:~:text=Moreover%2C%20since%20most%20of%20the,%2C%20and%203.4%25%20are%20Latinx.

https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/workforce/interactive-data/figure-18-percentage-all-active-physicians-race/ethnicity-2018

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/06/business/asians-workplace-discrimination-covid/

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/young_lawyers/projects/men-of-color/lawyer-demographics/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2021/03/23/standardized-testing-poor-students-sat-benefit-identify-column/4800781001/

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/09/blacks-in-stem-jobs-are-especially-concerned-about-diversity-and-discrimination-in-the-workplace/

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/african-americans-face-systematic-obstacles-getting-good-jobs/

https://www.brookings.edu/essay/women-are-advancing-in-the-workplace-but-women-of-color-still-lag-behind/

This blog will be about the difficulties and obstacles that women face in the workplace. The main issues talked about will be the gender pay gap, double standards, maternity leave, and childcare.

According to Time, it will take about 135+ years for men and women to be on the same pay level. One of the most talked about areas of this issue is the entertainment industry. While the entertainment industry may not be the one we are aiming to land in for the future, for the sake of this blog, I am going to mainly stick with the entertainment industry example to illustrate my points.

According to Insider.com, “2018’s highest-paid actress, Scarlett Johansson, made $198.5 million less than the highest-paid actor, George Clooney.” Similarly, in TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Ellen Pompeo, who plays the main character Meredith Grey, was paid half of what her costar, Patrick Dempsey, who plays her love interest made. A supporting statistic, according to theconversation.com, “…top female actors earn 38% as much as the top male actors.” So this is not an unfamiliar conversation that needs to be had.

There are women who are trying to speak up for themselves and others. One woman who has been speaking up against this is Jessica Chastain, who has become more vocal on the issue. According to Vanity Fair, she asks a film’s producer how her salary for a project compares to her male costars, and she has even helped fellow actress Octavia Spencer earn the same wages as her in a movie they costarred in. However, Chastain is one of the exceptions. Women have to be careful in every profession; they need to have the status and voice that if they get shut down or reprimanded, their career will not suffer for it. Actresses who do not have the status or voice to advocate for themselves may just take the disparity in pay silently.

Even looking at singers, female singers have to work so much harder to be near the same level as male singers. Taylor Swift is the only woman according to Rolling Stone to be on the Top 10 of the Highest Paid Musicians of 2021 list. Not to mention, during their shows women have to have multiple outfit changes and keep reinventing themselves, new hair, new makeup, while men can wear one outfit and keep doing their thing. The double standards are real. Female celebrities often pick up many projects as well, and they are still not paid nearly as much. Two celebrities I admire are Selena Gomez and Kelly Clarkson. Selena Gomez can act and sing, has her own TV show, and is the founder of Rare Beauty; Kelly Clarkson sings, is a Voice coach and Wayfair ambassador, has her own talk show, and is a mother on top of it all. And yet their net worths are $75 million and $45 million, respectively, much lower than many males’.

Another area that all women who want to have children must be concerned about is what happens when they decide they want to start a family? According to Welovesalt.com. “…42% of women did not feel that advancement processes gave them adequate support to progress in their careers…only 29% of women in Britain reported that they felt they could have children without it affecting their career.” Pregnancy takes major tolls on one’s body, but women usually work right up until they give birth. For actresses, you might need to have a certain body for a role, and therefore a lot of actresses push off starting families until their careers are more established. In general, putting career first is an up and coming trend in the workforce today, across all professions. In a normal workplace, employers may choose to hire a young man over a young woman, assuming that young women will soon get married and start a family. It hurts young women’s chances, and it pushes against having more gender diversity in the workplace, specifically between young men and women. As a result, more women are working until they know they have a stable position they are satisfied with to come back to.

There are also the questions every woman is asked: When are you getting married? When are you having kids? When society makes it so stinking hard to start a family, you wonder why women take “so long”.

Another factor is what happens after you have the baby. According to the Washington Post, the United States has 0 weeks of paid parental leave, which compared to 39 weeks in Britain, 52+ weeks in Japan, 68 weeks in Sweden, and 82+ weeks in Estonia, is astounding. This is also assuming that the mother has had a healthy pregnancy; according to Blue Cross Blue Shield, “Between 2014-2018, the rates of pregnancy complications rose more than 16%, while rates for childbirth complications rose more than 14%.” If a woman needs time to heal, she has to sacrifice pay for health. Another subissue is regarding adoptive parents; not all maternity policies apply to women who do not directly give birth to their baby, and as an adoptee, I find that outrageous. Every mother deserves to have time to bond with her baby, regardless of whether she gave birth or not. Between being unpaid and the lack of time, this is a major issue. Not to mention the price of childcare! According to Americanprogress.org, “At just over $1,300 per month, families with infants would need to pay nearly $16,000 per year on average to cover the true cost of childcare.” Sacrificing money and time is a tough decision for a family to make.

One last consideration is a Dad’s role in all of this. It is not often thought of if a young man chooses to take paternity leave instead, but sometimes those opportunities work better for some families. According to CBSNews, “Only 5% of new dads take at least two weeks of parental leave.” However, for couples of the same sex, or where the father takes care of the baby instead, there can be cultural assumptions that hurt them emotionally. It may not be considered the “man’s” role, so this can be damaging to young fathers as well.

Personally, I want to become a lawyer. In regard to the aforementioned issues, according to Abajournal.com, 37.7% of U.S. law firms are proportionally women, and 20% of first-year law students are women of color. In this career field, I would already be in a minority demographic, and as such, may face most of these issues. According to lawyeredu.org, men earn 53% more than women, female leadership in the field is minimal, and women trying to take maternity leave often face discrimination (not just in law). Woo!

If there was more diversity in the workplace, with more female leadership, I would like to believe there would be more policies put in place to support a woman’s decision to start a family. With most of the workplace’s leaders being men, the workplace can be stubborn and unforgiving to women. America makes it so hard for women to start families between being hired, being paid, being faced with double standards, taking maternity leave, and childcare. America needs to have better initiatives put in place to support women on their journey to starting a family, regardless of what profession they choose.

 

today/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20challenges%20faced,to%20progress%20in%20their%20careers.

https://time.com/5951101/global-gender-gap-135-years/

https://www.insider.com/hollywood-gender-pay-gap-examples-actresses-paid-less-than-actors-2019-4#2018s-highest-paid-actress-scarlett-johansson-made-1985-million-less-than-the-highest-paid-actor-george-clooney-1

https://theconversation.com/exploring-the-data-on-hollywoods-gender-pay-gap-127414#:~:text=In%20the%20film%20industry%2C%20the,as%20the%20top%20male%20actors.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/06/jessica-chastain-octavia-spencer-wage-gap-woman-walks-ahead

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/highest-paid-musicians-2021-bruce-springsteen-jay-z-taylor-swift-1281654/blake-shelton-83-million-1282541/

https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/singers/selena-gomez-net-worth/

https://www.welovesalt.com/news/2020/03/what-are-the-biggest-challenges-women-face-in-the-workplace-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/11/global-paid-parental-leave-us/

https://www.bcbs.com/the-health-of-america/reports/trends-in-pregnancy-and-childbirth-complications-in-the-us#complications

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/true-cost-high-quality-child-care-across-united-states/#:~:text=At%20just%20over%20%241%2C300%20per,true%20cost%20of%20child%20care.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paternity-leave-pete-buttigieg-criticism-policy-united-states/#:~:text=It’s%20still%20far%20from%20the,his%20first%20child%20was%20born.

https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/female-lawyers-still-underrepresented-especially-in-partnership-ranks-which-law-firms-do-best#:~:text=Over%20the%20last%20six%20years,female%20lawyers%20are%20also%20underrepresented.

https://www.lawyeredu.org/women-in-law.html

Hi! My name is Samantha Powell and this is my Civic Issues Blog. I chose to focus on Diversity in the Workplace.

A little bit about me, I was adopted from Hunan, China when I was 14 months old. I was brought to America, and I have lived in Doylestown, PA ever since. I have very few links to my heritage, just an adoption group that I stay in touch with. It does not seem like much, but it is nice to have a connection to the people who were in the orphanage with me and came over to America with me. As an Asian American woman, I value diversity a lot. I do understand that I have different experiences growing up as an adoptee but growing up I had a decent amount of Asian friends who would expose me to bits of Asian culture. Happy Lunar New Year by the way! When I was younger, I was very sad that I could not speak the language, and I felt a slight disconnect with my heritage, so I was very grateful for these small gestures. It matters a lot to me to meet people who have different voices and perspectives than what I grew up with, and to be exposed to new things, as I grew up in a pretty homologous community. Diversity is definitely the hot word of today, and for good reason.

The first question of the prompt was very interesting: “Are there a certain set of values located in the idea of “the workplace,” or does the workplace acquire values based on who works in it?” When I think of the word workplace, I do not think of a certain set of values. I do think however that the workplace acquires values based on who works in it. The values reflect the employees, and also the employers who have the power and are the face of the company. People may never realize that there are certain issues or perspectives until there is representation. Women, people of color, and people of different sexual orientations face many unique issues, so their visions may be different, but necessary for change and for more people’s voices to be heard. Bigger companies seem to have the welfare of their employees more in mind than smaller companies, but that may be due to many factors such as having more resources and opportunities for their employees.

According to FAANGPath, Google has raving work reviews. Google was honored with the “Best Places to work in Los Angeles 2021” Award, and 80% of their employees rate their work environment positively. They have self-care advantages, pay attention to employees’ happiness, and advocate for flexibility. The article says a lot more about Google, but in summary they really value each employee and what they contribute, even though there are many of them.

They have also been proactive with their drive for diversity, especially in the past decade. According to their Diversity, Equity & Inclusion report, just some of what they have done include publishing their diversity data publicly in 2014, launching a racial justice portfolio in 2015, and making racial equity commitments in 2020 for Google’s Black community. Google takes note of their employees and audience and reacts accordingly, focusing on making more people feel welcome, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Additionally, according to Fortune.com, the top company with the best diversity was Microsoft. It states concerning Microsoft’s diversity, “According to data from 2020, 39.7% of the company’s board was made up of racial and ethnic minorities, and its workforce as a whole was 49.8% racial or ethnic majorities.” However, later in the article the separation between racial diversity and gender diversity was made apparent. Microsoft’s gender diversity was far below their racial diversity stats. When people think of diversity, I think people think of racial diversity before gender diversity. Nonetheless, I think both are required for a “haven for equality”, as well as sexual orientation diversity. But it cannot be forced, just to check off a box. Companies need to first be actively thinking of how to expand their workplace’s diversity, then they need to incorporate initiatives, and then they need to keep the initiatives running smoothly and organically. A successfully diverse workplace is one where everyone feels comfortable and are not gawked at or made an example of, thus creating a “haven”.

Apart from these tech giants, there are other brands where diversity is especially important with regards to their audience. For example, Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez is another company that excels in diversity and makes it look effortless. Many beauty companies look to have diverse ambassadors and products; whether it is Gemma Chan as a L’Oréal ambassador, or Zendaya as a Lancôme ambassador, or having more foundation and concealer colors to match their consumers’ different skin tones, the attention beauty companies have been paying to being more inclusive is noticeable. According to The Courier, Rare Beauty has 48 different foundation and concealer shades, and honorable mention to Fenty for having 50 different shades.

For Rare, as Selena Gomez is the founder, I think her perspective leads to a very unique initiative right off the bat and different workplace values. Their Our Mission page states, “We are on a mission to help everyone celebrate their individuality by redefining what beautiful means. We want to promote self-acceptance and give people the tools they need to feel less alone in the world. Our vision is to create a safe, welcoming space in beauty – and beyond – that supports mental well-being across age, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, cultural background, physical or mental ability, and perspective.” Her company addresses all aspects of diversity, and makes it look natural. Her products are even disability-friendly. I think this is becoming more common, or at least people are becoming more aware of it, but it is still a goal that more companies need to actively pay attention to, not just beauty companies.

While makeup may not be the first workplace environment that people may think diversity is needed in, for many young girls it is. Looking at the Rare Beauty products and their shades, all of the models are different ethnicities. Luckily, beauty is becoming more diverse and there has been a focus on expanding the community to include people of all colors.

Between companies being aware of the need for diversity and what follows, I focused on the more progressive companies, but there is no doubt we need to keep pushing forward. These three companies play a big part, as Google and Microsoft are companies whose platforms we use every day, and beauty is a very important area to many women. Rare Beauty is just one of the many brands that have skyrocketed in popularity on Tik Tok, and for good reason. Personally, I do hope to climb to some leadership position in whatever career I may pursue, and I do hope that being an Asian woman does not hurt me. I hope that anyone in any position, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation has the equal chance of making a change in their workplace and having their voice be heard.

 

https://faangpath.com/blog/google-a-tech-titan-with-the-best-corporate-culture/#:~:text=Google’s%20culture%20is%20a%20leading,best%20possible%20use%20of%20technology.

https://diversity.google/annual-report/

https://fortune.com/2021/06/02/fortune-500-companies-diversity-inclusion-numbers-refinitiv-measure-up/

https://www.rarebeauty.com/pages/about

https://www.thecourieronline.co.uk/rare-beauty-rare-message-rarer-inclusivity/