Vote on Desiree Davidson's Story
Were they afraid we were planning a coup d'etat?
I spent my first summer during Columbia Law School at a firm in Philadelphia described as one of the best places in the city for black lawyers. I believed that if there was any place where I would have an equal chance at opportunities, be treated fairly and succeed, this would be it. There were three black female summer associates out of sixty that year but any time all three of us were in an office talking, one of the partners would knock on the door to see how we were doing. It happened too often to be a coincidence that sometimes we would purposely agree to meet in so-and-so's office to test our theory that we were being monitored. Like clock work, ten minutes after we would get together a partner would stop by.
Exclusion
While working at my last job, I was constantly having to deal with a boys' club mentality. The fact that the other female team-mate and I were excluded was very apparent when we overheard the rest of the team planning to take another team-member out to lunch for his birthday.
Another employer I worked for has a good old boys network. Women were often not invited to many social events, such as lunches or workouts or golf games or ski trips.
I worked at a law firm in San Francisco where one of the name plate partners, who had a fetish for Asian women (I'm a Latina), always excluded me from office lunches, activities, and was very rude to me.
I was groomed to ascend to executive status in a fast track management program for an international financial institution.
I am often questioned, some times ridiculed for not drinking alcohol at social events after work. Co-workers also often look down on fasting.
When the new Vice President of Diversity was brought on I was hopeful that she would be supportive of the LGBT community.
When I was moved to HR I found that all the people in HR were a clique. They were all white, went to lunch together and they all lived in the same area.
As the Director of a community health clinic part of my job was to change the clinic culture and bring it in line with corporate culture. The community was supposedly a progressive, liberal inclusive community. The corporation located in a different city, was a conservative, white woman dominated reproductive health care company.
The one time I almost lost my job was a time I had a group of people I had hired and the majority of people I hired were minorities. The vice president gave me the job and told me to hire my staff and I did.
The other thing I noticed was the male manager would go around to the other men's offices to visit and chat and to build the informal relationships. I said, "What am I? Chopped liver? Why don't you stop at my office like you do you so-and-so's and so-and-so's?" He said, "Oh, I do that." I brought it to his attention, but it didn't change anything.
