As Coco Gauff stood up to the umpire in her recent U.S. Open match [Gauff has gone viral on social media after confronting an umpire who turned a blind eye to her 35-year-old German opponent allegedly breaking the rules], demanding fairness in the rules that seemed to be applied differently to her and her opponent, I couldn’t help but see this as a microcosm of what black women face in workplaces every single day. When someone from a marginalized community excels, we often see tears and reluctance from others, who
A report by McKinsey and Co. found that representation for Black, Latina and Native American (BLNA) women in the tech workforce has shrunk over the past four years. McKinsey and Co. surveyed over 2,000 tech employees to calculate the experiences of BLNA women. The report is a collaborative effort by Reboot Representation and McKinsey in partnership with Pivotal Ventures. It explores effective strategies employers can use to attract, train and advance BLNA women. It additionally provides tools to help companies assess their current policies and practices and intentionally implement new strategies
Ariana McGee founded Navigate Maternity, a remote monitoring platform facilitating equitable prenatal and postpartum care for pregnant women. Black Women and Pregnancy In 2017, over 1,205 women died during and after children, with the U.S. having the highest perinatal mortality rate of any developed country. The United States is also known to be the most dangerous and expensive high-income country for childbirth, especially for Black and Indigenous women. Black women face a nine times higher risk of maternal death than their white counterparts, regardless of wealth. McGee nearly lost her
According to experts, Black women are often hired or promoted to leadership roles during a crisis, often referred to as the “glass cliff”. The Glass Cliff The term “glass cliff” was coined by a social and organizational psychologist, Michelle Ryan, at the University of Exeter. It describes a situation where a woman or person of color gets promoted to a senior leadership role during a difficult time and when the risk of failure is high. The “glass cliff” is essentially the opposite of the “glass ceiling” – a term that
Empowering Motherhood: The Black-Owned App Revolutionizes Pre And Post-Natal Care Through Technology
The Aster app was created to help women keep track of their pregnancy, communicate with a care team on the app and book appointments and remote monitoring. Founder of Aster FiFi Kara created the app after witnessing her family’s distress as her nephew was brought into the world. “After an emergency CAT 1 C-Section delivery, he required over seven minutes of resuscitation before he took his very first breath,” she wrote on LinkedIn. “The fact that both my nephew and sister are now thriving feels like a miracle, yet this narrative is sadly
EXHALE, a well-being app for Black women and women of color, shared its findings from a report that almost 2 in 5 (36%) Black women have left their jobs because they felt unsafe. The State of Self-Care for Black Women report EXHALE recently published its “The State of Self-Care for Black Women” report based on its survey of 1,005 Black women in the U.S. The report states that while diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are expected in institutions today, fostering safe spaces for Black women requires more specific resources to focus on their
Henrietta Lacks’ family is suing a second company for unjustly profiting from her cells. Lacks was a Black mother of five who died of cervical cancer in October 1951 at 31. Following a tumor biopsy, doctors saved a sample of her cancer cells without telling her and passed them on to a medical researcher at Johns Hopkins University. Although most cells die quickly in the lab, Lacks’ continued to multiply and didn’t age. These “immortal” cells were named HeLa (after her first and last name) and were sent to labs
For Black Business Month, media personality Sheletta Brundidge surprised five Black women with billboard advertisements for their businesses. August is National Black Business Month, where Americans recognize Black-owned businesses nationwide. Black business owners account for about 10%of U.S. businesses and 30% of all minority-owned businesses. A Harvard Business Review report also found that 17% of Black women are starting or running new businesses, compared to 10% of white women and 15% of white men. Billboard Ads for Black Women’s Businesses Five Black women entrepreneurs, including founders of Soul Grain Granola, Slyvia Williams and Liza Maya, were
New research has shed light on the extent of misogynoir across social media platforms. The study comes from the Digital Misogynoir Report by Glitch, a charity tackling the online abuse of Black women and marginalized people. What is Misogynoir? Misogynoir, a term coined by the queer Black feminist Moya Bailey in 2010, describes the anti-Black racist misogyny that Black women experience. Glitch uses the term to detail the “continued, unchecked, and often violent dehumanization of Black women on social media, as well as through other forms such as algorithmic discrimination.” The charity highlights
Black women continue to earn less than their white male counterparts in every state, new research by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) has revealed. Moreover, at the current rate of progress, Black women won’t reach pay equity with white men until 2144. Nationally, Black women earn just 63.7 cents for every dollar earned by white men – a striking difference of $20,702 in just one year. Among full-time year-round workers, the gap was slightly smaller at 67.2 cents on the dollar. “The gender wage gap is a national
