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.
Double Standards
It made me realize that all the "diversity" messaging that I had been giving to the media and analysts was a bunch of lies.
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.
This one white male associate was taking off for vacation and dumped his half written brief on me an hour before he was leaving.
Throughout my corporate sales career, I was always given a lower base salary and mistreated by my male counterparts.
Corporate America needs to wake up - their valuable female employees are fed up. We have begun a new movement of starting our own businesses.
I was given a promotion at a major financial trust company. The promotion turned out to be in title only, my salary was never changed.
I would have stayed if they had paid me the salary that all other supervisors in the company were paid and if someone had held management accountable for their actions.
My peers made comments about my braids and even touched my hair without asking. My hairstyle was very professional and not out of the ordinary in anyway.
I was spotted kissing my then-girlfriend goodbye in the car when she dropped me off for work one morning.
Another female colleague and I looked around the brokerage house we worked at and realized the department was being run by men but the two of us were the most educated of the group.
