Sisterhood Is Scarce

The glass ceiling is the classic symbol of the barrier women bump into as we go through our careers. But for women of color, that barrier is more like a concrete wall. If we’re going to reduce workplace sexism and racism, women of all ethnicities need to work together. And it will be tough to do that unless we feel more connected to each other.

We talk with professors Ella Bell Smith and Stella Nkomo about how race, gender, and class play into the different experiences and relationships white women and women of color have at work. They explain how those differences can drive women apart, drawing from stories and research insights in their book, Our Separate Ways.

AMY BERNSTEIN: We’ve talked a lot on this show about the problems we women deal with throughout our careers — the gender-age-wage gap, male colleagues who interrupt up us, sexual harassment, dead-end work.

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About the Author: DrStefanieKJohnson

Dr. Stefanie K. Johnson is an Associate Professor of Management at the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder. She holds a Ph.D. from Rice University and is particularly interested in the effects of unconscious biases in the evaluation of women and minorities, with the goal of finding ways to mitigate those biases. Dr. Johnson brings bias to light with an engaging and humorous approach to advanced scientific research, which has earned her numerous accolades and invitations to present her work at meetings around the world, including the White House for a 2016 summit on diversity in corporate America on National Equal Pay Day, and the 2016 Harvard Negotiation and Leadership Conference. She has published over 70 journal articles and book chapters in outlets such as Harvard Business Review, Journal of Applied Psychology and The Academy of Management Journal. She has extensive consulting experience and has created and delivered leadership-development training with an emphasis on evidence-based practice. In recognition of her unique research, Dr. Johnson has been awarded nearly three million dollars in external funding to study leadership and create leadership development programs aimed at increasing safety. Media outlets featuring her work include: The Economist, Newsweek, Time, and CNN. Stefanie lives in the Boulder Bubble in Colorado with her Biology Professor husband, two young kiddos, and two old kitties.