NPR's Michel Martin On How Conversations About Women In The Workplace Still Ignore Race

The Tell Me More host talks the wage gap, “having it all,” and “checking your privilege” in the National Journal ‘s Women in Washington issue.

In the cover story for the National Journal 's Women in Washington issue, NPR's Michel Martin reflects on the challenges of the work/life balance for women of color.

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There is a saying that is popular on some college campuses right now: Check your privilege. As I understand it, it's mainly aimed at advantaged white people who are being admonished to recognize their advantages, especially ones they take for granted. I won't presume to speak for all women of color so I will speak for myself: I don't care about that. I don't want your pity, and I can't use your guilt. I don't want my white female colleagues to "check" their privilege. I want them to use it—their networks, their assets, their relationships—to form a united front with women of color, and to help improve things for all of us.

While she explained that she had written the piece for 'her demographic' of 'highly educated, well-off women who are privileged enough to have choices in the first place,' I strongly believe that the issues she raised matter to women and families far beyond that demographic. Unfortunately, in the conversations I've seen about and around the piece—in online forums and at planned events, even those in which I've been asked to play a part—the discussion too often ends where it began: with privileged, mostly white women at the forefront. And that means issues disproportionately faced by women of color are pushed to the margins again and again.

Let's start with one of the smaller things: the invisibility of women of color who are ambitious and who are parenting or caregiving at the same time. It has changed some over the decades—The Cosby Show was a pioneer in this—but in my experience women of color have often been shown in entertainment as either mothers and caregivers (Good Times, Modern Family) or as ambitious and striving (Scandal). Rarely are they shown as both.

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