Corporate Environments and Power

¶ … McIntosh (1988) puts it, the primary issue with privilege and the power that comes with it is that those who are privileged rarely realize or acknowledge it. Denial of power and privilege perpetuates problems, because when men display "unwillingness to grant that they are over privileged," it becomes impossible to engage in meaningful dialogue or generate change (McIntosh, 1988, p. 22). One example of how dialogue is systematically shut down is the backlash against feminism, and the fear of "feminization" of society that is commonly heard among the most powerful and privileged.

In the same way, whites fail to recognize white privilege, going so far as to make accusations of "reverse racism" when any attempt is made to reverse structural inequality. Flagg (1993) also raises a crucial concern about the need for race consciousness, not racial erasure or "color blindness." To be color blind is to deny not only the potency that race has in the public consciousness and in personal identity construction, but also to deny and disavow the continued existence of racism in society.

It is important to be racially conscious, for whites to own their own racial identity and acknowledge all the powers and privileges associated with whiteness throughout the world. Color blindness sounds romantic, but does far more harm than good by shutting down dialogue and discourse. If, as Flagg (1993) suggests, "substantive racial justice" is a shared goal among all Americans, then the dialogue about race needs to continue (p. 954). Consciousness of race means different things to different people.

Racial identity depends on race consciousness, not as a means of creating categories of "us" and "them," although this does certainly happen. Another function of racial identity is the willingness to explore why people of color are systematically underprivileged in America, why poverty rates are higher among people of color or why an achievement gap persists. By the same token, gender identity implies the willingness to explore why fewer women than men are thriving in STEM or why the pay gap remains unquestioned in government and policy.

Being privileged is by definition something that feels good, and which makes life substantially easier versus the underprivileged or the unprivileged.

The people who are privileged by virtue of their being born in the right place at the right time to the right people sometimes project their experiences onto others, presuming that because it was easy for them to excel in school or get into college or start a business that it should be that way for everyone, and that those who do not achieve their goals simply did not work hard enough. The myth of the American meritocracy persists.

Sure, working hard is a necessary factor in anyone's success, privileged beginnings or not. When we consider, though, the single mom who could not afford the best quality pre-schools, who worked two jobs and barely had time to fix dinner let alone read to her kids for an hour a day, it becomes easier to understand why underprivileged people breed underprivileged kids.

In my experience, financial status and class are even more important than gender and race when it comes to power and privilege in the early years, but at a certain point, gender and race become far more critical in determining who does and does not reach the pinnacles of their careers. When all things are equal and an African-American student does well and graduates from college, applying for a home loan becomes one of the first potential barriers to achieving power.

African-Americans and other people of color in America have systematically had a more difficult time securing loans. Without access to loans, a person of color has a harder time starting a small business. Women often make it through the STEM pipeline at the beginning, only to find that the corporate cultures systematically exclude their opinions or voices, or lack the appropriate mentoring opportunities that could create more female leaders.

I do not know what it is like to be genuinely powerful and privileged, but I do know about the relativity of power and privilege. Few of us are at the uppermost level or social status or at the bottom. We have all been guilty of forgetting that certain elements of our existence are judged or mark us as being more powerful than some, less than others.

As a woman, I know that I may feel that I have to work harder than my male colleagues to have my work be recognized. Yet I also know that if I point out instances of sexism that are obvious to me, my male colleagues might laugh at me or belittle me. Even my female colleagues are sometimes complicit in discrimination. As a Latina, I also know that others may label me and.