Forwarded message re Black Men and Black Women in the corporate

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From: kla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Earl Mitchell)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: The Black Gender Divide and its Social Implications
Date: 16 Mar 1994 22:55:04 GMT
Organization: Stanford University, CA 94305, USA

The article was posted in the Lotus Black Caucus database.
Somebody scanned it in and posted it.

Black Women's Gains In Corporate America Outstrip Black Men's

Author:  Wilbur Herrington
                                                        Date Composed:
03/11/94

_____________________________________________________________________________

Subject:
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ARTICLE
Discussion:

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
(c) 1994 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 1994

The Gender Divide: Black Women's Gains In Corporate America Outstrip Black
Men's --- That Raises Some Concerns



  Ellen Scott is a senior human-resources representative at Rockwell
International Corp.'s Rocketdyne division. She is young -- 27 years old --
and successful.

  Ms. Scott is also part of a fast-growing group in corporate America:
black professional women. Between 1982 and 1992, this group grew a heady
125%. Black female professionals in the 38,000 companies that report to
the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission now number almost
200,000.

  This is, of course, minuscule compared with the number of white
professionals
-- male and female. But it is nearly twice the number of black male
professionals. According to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal of EEOC
data, there were 1.2 black female professionals for every black male
professional in 1982. Now, there are 1.8. Though white women have made
substantial gains relative to white men, white men continue to have a
greater share of professional jobs: In 1982 there were 0.62 white women
professionals for every white man; in 1992, there were 0.94.

  Black women also are making strides in the more general category of
"white collar, excluding clerical." In 1982, there were slightly more
black women than black men in that category. By 1992, the number of black
women in those jobs had grown 90% to about 815,000, while the number of
men had grown less than 50%, to about 564,000.

  That black women are rising more rapidly than black men in corporate
America is a source of mixed feelings for blacks. Considering the
obstacles to promotion that minorities of all kinds often face, the
success of black women professionals is reason for pride.

  But a number of male and female corporate executives of both races,
government officials, scholars and behaviorists interviewed for this story
see the gap as posing new challenges for a corporate culture already
grappling with sexual and racial bias and a black community increasingly
worried about the future of its young men and women.

  Many blacks fear a future of more struggling, women-led households,
fewer men in positions of power and responsibility, and a social and
economic disparity that makes the basic social customs of dating and
marrying more difficult.

  The progress of women and the lowered expectations for men "speaks to
the availability of marriageable men, of family formation, the health of
the black community," says Charles Betsey, chairman of the economics
department at historically black Howard University in Washington.

  The reasons black women are overtaking black men are many and complex.
They begin with the factors that keep black men from entering the
corporate world in the first place and include the attitudes that often
end up favoring black women over black men once they get through the
corporate door.

  Many black men have been sidetracked by crime, drugs and inadequate
education; some drop out of a system they are convinced will never treat
them fairly. Statistics show that more young black men die from homicide
than from any other single cause. More black men are in jail than in
college. While black people's jobless rate is about twice that of whites,
more black men are on the unemployment rolls than black women. Lastly, the
government attracts a good number of ambitious, young black men away from
corporations. According to the Pentagon, more than 270,000 black men are
in the military alone.

  Consequently, there are now more black women than black men at companies
reporting to the EEOC, a situation unique among ethnic groups in corporate
America. These companies employed 2.77 million black women and 2.44
million black men in 1992.

  Some companies attribute the larger number of black female professionals
at their firms to the greater number of college-educated women in the work
force. (The EEOC defines professional jobs as "occupations requiring
either college graduation or experience of such kind and amount as to
provide a comparable background.") Charles Reid, director of diversity for
Kraft General Foods Inc., a unit of Philip Morris Cos., says the disparity
between male and female professionals at his company probably reflects bl
ack women's predominance in the college-educated applicant pool. Between
1989 and 1992, black women increased their ranks from 131 to 172; black
men, from 101 to 131, the company says.

  Education also is a factor at Detroit Edison Co. The number of black
women professionals at the utility grew more dramatically than the number
of black male professionals: From 1982 to 1992, the number of women
professionals grew 90%, while the number of men increased 16%. Malcolm
Dade, vice president for human resources, says although he doesn't have
"hard evidence," he believes that the increase in black women at his
company has to do with their greater numbers in the college-educated work
force.

  It is indeed the case that more black women graduate from college and
professional schools than do black men. Roughly 14.2% of the black women
in the civilian work force have bachelor or postgraduate degrees compared
with 11.9% for black males. By contrast, 22.7% of white females in the
work force held bachelor or postgraduate degrees, while 26.2% of white
males had similar credentials.

  "Over time, more and more African-American women are getting credentials
and fewer and fewer African-American men are," says David Thomas,
associate professor of economics at the Harvard Business School. "This is
endemic to society rather than something internally happening in
companies. Black men are being pushed out of the process so early that
they don't even qualify to compete. They don't have the requisite skills
to get into the labor force."

  To be sure, the majority of black women still labor in low-paying,
low-status jobs with little chance of advancement -- just like black men.
And women will stay in dead-end jobs longer than men, economists say,
especially if they have children. A study shows that salaries of black
women in the work force trail those of black men by 14 percentage points.

  In the higher ranks of corporations -- what the EEOC calls the
"officials and managers" category -- black men still outnumber women, in
large part because they entered the work force first, says Ella Bell, of
Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. In
1992, black men held about 146,000 such jobs; black women, 113,000.

  But black women are closing that gap, too, although some economists say
that recent corporate layoffs have slowed the upward mobility of black
managers -- and managers in general. Still, between 1982 and 1992,
according to the Journal's analysis, black men increased their numbers in
management by 22%; black females increased theirs by 64%. In all other
areas of the white-collar work force, there are more black women than
black men.

  Armed with diplomas, black women are getting hired -- and working hard
to get ahead. In their quest, they are aided, many blacks say, by both
subtle and not-so-subtle attitudes that help them more than black men.

  For instance, there is a feeling among many blacks, especially males,
that black women succeed because white men prefer working with them. The
comfort level has nothing to do with sex, but rather, the theory goes,
that ambitious, direct and assertive black males are often seen by white
supervisors as aggressive, suspicious or arrogant. Women are viewed as
more compliant, easier to get along with.

  "Black women are taught from a young age to be multitalented,
multifaceted and to be able to be a chameleon. And for industry that's
very crucial. You need people you can put into a particular environment
and know they'll thrive," says 32-year-old Amanda Harris. She is the
youngest nonwhite manager at the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

  John J. Higgins, a white senior vice president and general counsel at GM
Hughes Electronics and Hughes Aircraft Co., subsidiaries of General Motors
Corp., speaks to this issue based on his own experience. He helped mentor
Wanda Denson-Low, a young black woman who is staff vice president for
patents and licensing, assistant general counsel -- and the company's
highest ranking minority female. "In Wanda's case, she accepted me as I
was," Mr. Higgins says. "She wasn't looking for an agenda; she wasn't
suspicious of my motives. She took me at my word.

  "Based upon my interface with black males, the initial encounters will
involve a chip on their shoulder, some obvious skepticism," he adds.

  But what is perceived by white managers as arrogance sometimes can be
the armor black people wear to protect themselves from the pain of being
devalued or misunderstood. Says Michael Sales, a black senior patent
counsel who works with Ms. Denson-Low and Mr. Higgins, "There is a shell;
there is a certain defensiveness, a certain distancing thing until the
personal relationship develops." He says corporations can help turn around
the distressing trend for black men if top management cares enough to
mentor and network with black males. "It's like the movie `Schindler's
List,' " he says. "You have one gentleman who says, `I'm going to do what
I can do.' " For him, it was his mentor, Mr. Higgins, whom Mr. Sales
describes as "the one out of 10 white men who is sensitive and fair."

 WSJviaNewsEDGE
 Copyright (c) 1994 Dow Jones and Company, Inc.
 Received via NewsEDGE from Desktop Data, Inc.: 3/8/94 2:07


Subjects:       NOAM USA WSJ
Page:   A1
WS: Wall Street Journal

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