Black Women Can’t Bridge the Gender Gap Alone: raceAhead

Black Women’s Equal Pay Day is a reminder that bridging the gender gap is everyone’s job.

About twelve years ago, my sister needed to be hospitalized, stat. I was there to help her check–in, a fraught exchange of questions and answers in a rapid-fire call and response: Symptoms? Insurance? Known allergies? Oh, and who is this woman who brought you?

We get that last one a lot. While we share one white parent, we have different fathers. She’s all white and I’m not. As a result, we look nothing alike.

“This is my sister, Ellen,” she explained. “This is Sister Ellen,” the intake nurse intoned back. “No, this is my sister, Ellen,” she said wearily. The nurse looked up and blinked at me. “Right, this is Sister Ellen,” she said, and then wrote something down and twirled away as a thousand no-no-no-noes tumbled out of my mouth.

And that was how I temporarily became a nun. 

Much later, she came into the waiting room. “Oh, Sister!” She was looking at me. An elderly patient was a bit sad and lonely. Was I busy? Did I mind?

White cultures routinely serve up moments like these for people of color, inconvenient blindspots that lead to awkward assumptions, like the black and brown women scientists who are routinely mistaken for custodial staff, or the black moms of mixed–race kids who are assumed to be the nanny. Maybe it’s just the chirpy individual contributor who can’t possibly imagine you, a black woman, is their new boss! 

When it happens, as it does regularly, it inevitably leads to an exhausting internal debate, a decision tree filled with pros, cons, and doubts. Am I reading this situation correctly? Is this person a problem? Do I explain it to them? Is it worth potentially alienating a person that I need to be on my team, as in this case, to take excellent care of my sister?

“I’ll go look in on her,” I said, too tired to finish the danger algorithm. 

I was reminded of this cringey bit of business during another more recent urgent hospital visit. My mother slipped and shattered her hip last month. I sat beside her day after day as she recovered, equally shattered, but in a totally different way.

Like most of the patients at the lovely rehab facility where she got excellent care, she is white. Like most of the aides, caregivers, and administrative assistants, I am black. The occasional misidentification from patients who were in pain or without their glasses never bothered me much. Being ordered around or, worse, looked at in a certain tone of voice by their executive–class family members or men in white lab coats, well and surely did.

Today is Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, and I’m thinking about those wonderful women who took care of my mom and me at the worst possible time, when she was in pain and I was beside myself with worry. (And dozens of other patients and family members, too.) They were amused by the occasional errand I ran for other patients, or the necessary stink eyes I delivered on their behalf.  (The algorithm was easy to run since I wasn’t a hostage to the system.) They let me orbit their squad and I was comforted by their welcome. They even gave me a spot in the employee parking lot when I was really pressed, and occasionally let me sit in their break room when I wrote to you.  

But like my brief promotion to Sister Ellen, I was just a temp.

Most of these women, who can expect a lifetime working longer and for less pay than non-Hispanic white men, are also currently juggling two and three jobs, often to afford more training so they can get slightly better positions in a field that still regards them as the help. Many are immigrants, now uncertain of their future in their country of choice. 

They may be too busy, too tired, or too afraid to fight for equal pay. That’s why we have to.

My mother is home now and on the mend. But just so you know, when I visited that elderly patient many years ago, I made it clear that no absolution was coming from me. “Trust me, I’m not a nun,” I told her. “I get it,” she said in a slightly smirky way. “I washed out of that whole Catholic thing years ago, too.”  

And that’s how I became a failed temp nun. 

Waddaya gonna do? We ended up having a lovely chat that probably meant more to me than it did to her. Sometimes being a frightened human is really the only shared identity that matters.

The rest of the time, you have to keep up the work.  

Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
@ellmcgirt