'Black women lead the way, starting 42 percent of women-owned businesses, followed by Latinx women with 31 percent.'
They start their corporate careers like everyone else: eager to show their value and hungry to learn. They actually are more ambitious than other newbies, much more likely to aim for the top jobs. But they quickly and consistently see that stretch assignments andaren’t coming their way, and there are no seats at the table for women who look like them. So they resign.
One of her early jobs was as a research analyst with an investment bank, “a very bro-y culture. Guys kept Pepto-Bismol on their desks for hangovers, and were always farting and burping.” “They tried to be unbiased, yet every time a woman came in to interview, they said she was too aggressive or too assertive, especially if she followed up with an email about what she’d do if she got the job. Yet when a man did the same thing, he was hired,” she recalls.
But she wasn’t. Thanks to at least one supportive teacher, she went to the University of Connecticut and joined a large airline’s customer-relations division after graduating. Marilyn was anxious to move up. She kept applying for promotions, but time after time, they went to white colleagues with the same credentials. She again believed it was because she wasn’t smart enough and “didn’t have what it takes,” she says.
Then a health-insurance company approached her about a position combining sales and marketing that targeted the growing Latino customer base. She jumped at the opportunity. But she was often the only Latina in meetings where colleagues frequently commented about Latinos “not being ready for prime time.” She tried to dress “corporate,” never wearing hoops or dangling earrings because they were “too ethnic.” It didn’t work. She didn’t move beyond the director level.
She stayed with the corporation for 10 years and was “hungry for opportunities.” She tried to network and was told she should take her company’s online classes. When her manager, a white man, found out she had enrolled, he got angry, accusing her of trying to take his job. He told her to stay put and that she wasn’t a leader.
She wanted to move into training roles, playing into her lifelong love of teaching. However, when a good opportunity came up, she was afraid to take it because she didn’t know the system they were using. Her manager at the time, a white guy, told her to “figure it out as you go along,” advice men often heed. “It was an aha moment. I thought I needed all the answers first, and I realized others didn’t operate that way,” she recalls.
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