Considering the parallels and differences in the biases that women and racial minorities face is an important way to increase our understanding of workplace discrimination and equality. By reviewing some recent work by cross-disciplinary researchers from across the world, we attempted to shed light and theorize on some ways in which racial minorities might suffer from similar biases as those identified for women. For the sake of comprehension, we narrowed our scope to research on Asian Americans.

As our starting point, we took four patterns of workplace bias that women face as identified by a 2014 study by a research team based out of UC Hastings College of the Law’s Center for WorkLife Law. Joan C. Williams, Kathrine W. Phillips, and Erika V. Hall interviewed 60 women who work in the sciences and found that 100 percent reported experiencing one or more of four gender bias patterns.

Although these biases were identified as specific to women, by comparing them to findings from research on biases that Asian Americans face in the workplace, it becomes clear that they can also apply to racial minorities.

The first bias, “prove-it-again,” refers to when women have to provide more evidence of competence than men in order to be seen as equally competent. As the name suggests, women can find themselves in situations where they have to prove again and again that they are professional, competent, and/or intelligent. For example, a woman might have to exhibit competency at her job for a longer period before being considered for promotion than a man doing an equivalent job.

Similarly, Asians oftentimes have to provide more evidence of competence than non-Asians. A 2013 study by Lei Lai and Linda C. Babcock found evidence that Asian Americans are evaluated as less socially skilled than whites, and are therefore less likely to be hired for a job requiring social skills (like public relations) than technical skills (like information technology). A 2013 study on the leadership theories of Asian Americans and whites found that even when Asian managers are seen as equally competent as white managers in specific metrics, on the whole whites see Asian managers as less sociable, less transformational, and less authentic compared to white managers. Like women, Asian Americans must prove their competence to a greater extent than whites, particularly in areas where stereotypes and prejudices remain.

The second bias, “tightrope,” refers to when women often find themselves walking a tightrope between being seen as too feminine to be competent or too masculine to be likable. This is a difficult—not to mention unfair—balance for women to have to consider, and is often very hard to attain. Hillary Clinton is only the most recent and prominent example of a woman who has been criticized for being “too masculine” or, in more coded language, “too ambitious and eager.”

Similarly, Asians are commonly stereotyped as being more feminine and less masculine compared to whites or blacks. In 2012, Jennifer L. Berdahl and Ji-A Min examined stereotypes of East Asians (Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese) and found that they are expected to be as competent and warm as whites—but also less dominant (i.e., masculine). And a 2015 study of “gender profiling” by Erika Hall, Adam Galinsky, and Katherine Phillips found that because Asians are seen as more feminine than whites and blacks, they are seen as better fits for feminine rather than masculine positions. This could pose barriers when Asians seek positions—like police officer or banker—that are historically seen as masculine.

The third bias, “maternal wall,” refers to women finding themselves confronted with the stereotype that they lose their work commitment and competence after having kids. Men who have children don’t typically face this same stereotype in the workplace.

There is evidence suggesting that Asian women are faced with particular biases and challenges around motherhood in professional contexts. In the same 2014 study of women scientists by Williams and colleagues, Asian women described more pressure from their families to have children than whites and blacks, and also felt more responsible to cover for colleagues who are mothers compared to Latina and white women. At the same time, Asian women were more frequently told by colleagues that they should work fewer hours after having children compared to black and Latina mothers. So Asian-American women face more pressure from their families to have children, while also experiencing more pressure from colleagues to work less after having children.

The fourth bias, “tug of war,” refers to when gender bias fuels conflict among women. In some instances, having a sexist work environment can lead women to want to distance themselves from their gender group in different ways, including by criticizing other women.

Based on the interviews reported by Williams and colleagues, Asian women had to compete with other women for a “woman’s spot” –i.e, a position intended to be filled by a woman—at higher levels than white and Latina women. This seems to suggest that for Asian women, there is more (or at least greater perceptions) of a “zero sum” situation when it comes to the workforce and women colleagues, where one woman’s gain is another woman’s loss.

Ultimately, what strikes us is that there are clear intergroup differences in how women experience and are exposed to these four different patterns of bias, depending on their racial background. Asian women’s experiences can be significantly different from black women’s experiences, and in order to create an equal and inclusive workplace for all, it is important to be aware of such differences.

Future research should look at the ways in which biases and prejudice against women compare to those against racial minorities, and study which type of interventions are most effective in reducing the effects of such biases. More study is also needed on the intersections of race and gender when it comes to workplace bias. A greater understanding and awareness of the parallels and differences between the biases that women and racial minorities face can result in more effective and efficient interventions in the workplace designed to promote inclusion for all.

The post Where Do Racism and Sexism Intersect at the Office? appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

At last estimate, Los Angeles’ population topped 3.9 million. In 1850, when the city was first incorporated, approximately 1,600 people lived here. In the last 165 years L.A.’s size and population have changed in almost every conceivable way.

But this growth hasn’t been accompanied by growth in our aspirations for being represented by public officials who know us and our concerns firsthand. Indeed, our aspirations in this political arena—our aspirations to be fairly represented and to prevent the concentration of power—may have atrophied. Los Angeles, through so much change, stubbornly remains a place designed to defeat those who might accumulate power and wield it.

Since the city’s first charter was put into effect in 1889, Angelenos have set up a system of government based on the desire to contain and diffuse power, and to protect ourselves from officeholders. The result is that it has long been hard to tell who is in charge. Power is purposefully spread out between the mayor, the city attorney and the city controller, and the 15-member city council.

Los Angeles first created a council and office of the mayor in 1850. Decades later, the 1889 charter established the practice of electing a city councilmember to each of nine wards. 1909 marked the beginning of at-large elections in Los Angeles and of non-partisan elections, in which candidates are elected without regard to their party preference. Both changes were largely reactions to widespread corruption and distrust of party politics, two sentiments that persist more than a century later. At-large elections, in which officials were elected to represent the entire city, not one district, continued for 16 years and non-partisan elections continue to this day.

Voters approved significant changes to the charter in 1925; the charter did away with at-large elections for the nine city council members and created a 15-member city council in which each member is elected to represent one district. Ninety years and 3 million more people later, today’s government still resembles that 1925 version. At the time, approximately 600,000 people lived in the city of Los Angeles, and each councilmember represented about 40,000 residents. Today, each councilmember represents 260,000 Angelenos—about 6 ½ times the number a councilmember represented in 1925.

The city council attempted to make bold changes to the charter in the early 1970s, but all they succeeded in doing was adding power for one group of officials and taking it away for others.

In 1999, at the end of a decade in which city government seemed powerless in response to riots and the San Fernando Valley sought to secede from the city, L.A. city voters approved a charter that strengthened the power of the mayor and created a system of neighborhood councils in an effort to increase civic participation across the city. It was largely an acknowledgment of L.A.’s size and diversity. It was also a concession that 15 city councilmembers could not be appropriately responsive to the needs of such a large city.

At the time, city councilmembers each had approximately 240,000 residents in their districts. But the voters rejected measures to give themselves more representation and enlarge the size of the city council. Angelenos were apparently united in their desire not to increase the number of our elected officials, a desire that remains firmly in place today, 16 years after we comprehensively reformed the charter.

It’s enough to make one ask whether Angelenos have any aspiration for political representation at all. Los Angeles currently has the highest councilmember-to-resident ratio in the country and one of the lowest percentages of voter turnout in local elections. In our most recent city elections, approximately 9 percent of those registered to vote did so. In the election prior to that, in 2013, just over 20 percent of registered voters showed up to the polls despite a competitive mayoral election.

And less than half of eligible voters bother to register. That means a city councilmember can be elected with about 13,000 votes—just 5 percent of their district.

Angelenos have created a “voting class” which picks our representatives for us. Ironically, a city built and structured on a distrust of power is ceding an enormous amount of power to those few people who choose to weigh in on local elections.

Many Angelenos may say they want elected officials to represent us fairly and be responsive to our needs. But how can they do this well when each member represents over a quarter million residents? And why should they when they know only a small segment of those residents will determine whether they can keep their jobs?

As we created and later reformed our system of city government, we worried about putting too much power in any one individual or governing body. Now, as a result of our own apathy, we have put too much power in a select few.

It’s past time for Los Angeles to put a new aspiration on the agenda—more and better representation in the life of the city. And that requires increasing the number of politicians in local government. It may also require looking at other ways to increase voter turnout, like automatic voter registration (which was just passed on the state level), implementing early voting, and creating voter centers that are open for weeks before an election. It is time for at least a few of the people in office to know our names.

The post Angelenos Never Much Cared About Local Politics appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Ever since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, it’s been fashionable to deplore (with full-on How dare they? indignation) the power of big business in our political process. But judging from recent events, I’m more inclined to regret that corporations don’t have a greater say in our civic life.

Seriously. Think about the recent rash of exhilarating triumphs for once-marginalized minorities: the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage across the land; South Carolina hastening to lower the Confederate flag of sedition and racism; a Republican presidential candidate being ostracized for bashing Latino immigrants. One of the threads connecting each of these stories is the presence of corporate America flexing its muscles, taking a stand against the bullying and discrimination of minorities.

In the landmark marriage case, a Who’s Who list of blue-chip companies from Procter & Gamble to Goldman Sachs signed onto legal briefs urging the justices to strike down all bans on gay marriage. They argued that such bans conflict with their own anti-discrimination and diversity policies, and that you can’t have a country (and cohesive marketplace) where fundamental rights—like the right to marry—vary from state to state.

Even more impressively, big business mobilized in a number of states over the past two years to defeat or roll back proposed “religious freedom” laws seen as disingenuous efforts to legitimize the discrimination of gays. No single company has been more identified with the effort to stand up to such laws than Walmart, which was credited with singlehandedly defeating a proposed measure in its home state of Arkansas. The retailer also joined other prominent businesses in attacking another such law passed in Indiana, which was subsequently altered.

Business interests were also instrumental in turning the tide against the Confederacy. The New York Times story on South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s decision to call for the removal of the Confederate flag from the State Capitol grounds in the aftermath of the racially-motivated massacre at the Emanuel Church credited “intensifying pressure from South Carolina business leaders to remove a controversial vestige of the state’s past” as one factor leading to the governor’s reversal of her previous position.

Arizona is another state where businesses leaders fought against, and defeated, a religious freedom law that would have otherwise prevailed. In addition, establishment Republicans and corporate leaders in the Grand Canyon State have been in full damage-control mode since the state legislature passed SB 1070, a controversial anti-immigration measure which proved disastrous to the state’s brand as a tourism and investment destination. Subsequently, the business community mobilized to defeat a number of other, ever more radical, anti-immigrant proposed laws in the state, and to take on the Tea Party Republicans responsible for them.

At the national level, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups have led the charge for sensible immigration reform—though this effort can’t yet be checked off as a victory. If only the business lobby had as much power as we often assume it does! In the meantime, it was gratifying for Latino activists aligned with business on immigration to watch Donald Trump be fired by corporate partners like Macy’s, Comcast, Univision, and Disney over his hateful comments about Mexicans. Turns out, vicious speech denigrating immigrants may be acceptable speech in certain political circles, but not in the corporate realm.

Some politicians eager to cater to local prejudices, and capitalize on them, are clearly chafing at the activism of corporations on behalf of a healthier business climate. This spring, while pushing for his own religious freedom law, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal practically whined in a New York Times op-ed: “As the fight for religious liberty moves to Louisiana, I have a clear message for any corporation that contemplates bullying our state: Save your breath.”

It’s an interesting line, not only because he ascribed “breath” to companies, doubling down on the much-mocked pronouncement of then-candidate Mitt Romney that companies are essentially people, too. Jindal’s choice of the verb “bullying” is deliciously hypocritical, because in this case (as in the others described above), it was business rising up to oppose the bullying of people by small-minded politicians.

And this is the key issue on which I differ from many of my friends and colleagues in journalism and academia who hold to a reflexively anti-corporate worldview. They see large, distant corporations as the source of much bullying. I tend to see the worst forms of bullying arising closer to home: at the hands of local or state governments, or dominant business interests rooted in one place.

No, there isn’t anything inherently virtuous about business leaders. As cynics are quick to note, the political fights I’ve described here are all about business wanting what’s best for business. Companies need to avoid offending existing or potential customers and they need to be seen as being inclusive and diverse employers to the best and brightest potential hires out there. I’ll still take those selfish impulses: If only more governments were similarly motivated, instead of being willing to marginalize minorities.

Most business lobbying is admittedly not focused on civic or “business climate” issues like the ones I am raising, but rather on narrower, self-interested agendas of particular companies or industries—say, to influence the drafting or application of regulations, or tax laws. Critics resent the billions spent by corporations and their trade associations in trying to influence the political process, especially since the amounts they spend dwarf the lobbying expenditures of everyone else. But lost in the depiction of a monolithic corporate America pitted against the rest of us, getting its way behind closed doors, is the fact that a significant portion of those business lobbying efforts and dollars are essentially engaged in an intramural corporate contest. It’s about one industry or company seeking to gain advantage (or a level playing field, they might say) against a competitor. Those dollars often cancel each other out. But when the business community does come together to speak with one voice, on broader issues affecting us all, it tends to play a powerful and positive role.

Big business tends to be more enlightened than smaller business interests rooted in only one place, because the broader your perspective, the bigger your market, the less tolerant you can afford to be of idiosyncratic regional prejudices. A company with customers and employees across the country or around the world won’t be comfortable choosing as its home a state that embraces symbols associated with the cause of slavery, or one that passes laws that treat gay couples as second-class citizens or one perceived to be harassing foreigners. It’s no accident that commerce across state lines has always been one of the great motors of progress in this country, and not just economic progress.

That is also why trade agreements that seek to harmonize norms across borders are as beneficial to individuals as they are to big multinationals. The prospect of joining the European Union (and attracting investment by large foreign companies) forced governments across Eastern Europe to protect the rights of long-oppressed minorities. As much as Elizabeth Warren and her protectionist allies have attacked President Obama’s proposed trade deal with Asia as a sop to big business, the agreement will help strengthen civil society and individual rights in these countries for precisely the reasons these critics attack it—by standardizing norms of behavior across jurisdictions.

Bigotry, and the disregard of people’s rights and dignity that comes with it, don’t travel well. And they’re bad for business.

The post Big Corporations Are Good for Social Progress appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

What may well prove to be the most striking of all the many ironies in the life and career of Nikki Haley, born Nimrata Nikki Randahawa, came when, at her mother’s request, she was at least allowed to perform her talent number, a very capable rendition of “This Land Is Your Land.” Anyone searching for a compelling visual testimony to the brutal absurdity of the American South’s racial obsessions surely need look no further than the photo of little Nikki on the pageant stage, clutching the wrapped package containing the fittingly deflated beach ball that she and her sister received as what she later called their “disqualification” prize. Surely no one in attendance that night, save, one senses in retrospect, perhaps the little girl herself, could imagine that some three decades later, Bamberg would boast four signs welcoming motorists to the “Home of Nikki Haley, Governor of South Carolina.”

It is tempting to see a story of both personal triumph and regional redemption in the meteoric political ascent of this woman who was born an “other” to blacks and whites in a society where skin color really mattered. Yet contrary to deep-seated liberal presumptions, Nikki Haley has proven to be anything but the empathetic, compassionate champion of minorities and women that her background seemed almost to mandate. Instead, growing up almost astride the color line appears to have quickly shown a savvy young woman like Haley which side of the racial divide offered the better prospects for fulfilling her ambitions. The same was true of the partisan divide as well, for South Carolina was already an established GOP stronghold when she entered the 2004 primary, where she stunned the pundits by knocking off the longest-serving incumbent in the state House of Representatives before sailing unopposed in an overwhelmingly Republican district through the general election to take her seat as the first Indian-American member of the South Carolina legislature.

Six years later, in a campaign marked by persistent rumors of her marital infidelity and a fellow Republican’s reference to her as an “[expletive] raghead,” Haley not only dispatched three better-known primary rivals on the way to become the first female and non-white occupant of the governor’s mansion, but she also won praise from national Republican leaders like Sarah Palin, who called her “the proud daughter of immigrants who worked day and night to achieve the American dream.”

Truth be told, Nikki Haley, an early Tea Party favorite, has hardly proven herself a friend of immigrants, or people of color in general. She has opposed a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and, as governor, she championed a new law requiring state-issued photo I.D.s for all voters. Despite her state’s large indigent (disproportionately minority) population, she refused the Affordable Care Act’s offer of increased Medicaid funding, flatly declaring, “We will not expand Medicaid ever.” On the other hand, Haley is just fine with forking over lavish public subsidies to new employers who also have the governor’s personal assurance that “we’d rather die than have unions here.”

Indeed, Haley stands shoulder to shoulder with other Deep South governors in their longstanding and unwavering faith in bringing in new industry at any cost. Forced increasingly to weigh their obligations to preserve segregation against the development imperative as civil rights pressures mounted, the balance began to tip in favor of the latter in the 1960s, when concerns about the potentially harmful effects of racial tensions on business development helped to pave the way for the initial desegregation of public schools and other public facilities and accommodations. A similar consideration has factored heavily in more recent disputes over removing the Confederate battle flag from state property or excising it from the flags of several southern states.

In South Carolina, that flag might still be flying atop the state capitol had a torrent of threatened economic and tourist boycotts and pressure from the state’s business community not forced the legislature 15 years ago to at least move it to the capitol grounds. Though this placement was still far from satisfactory to most black South Carolinians, Governor Haley had shown no public inclination to move against it until the cold-blooded slaughter of nine African- Americans inside their Charleston church by a Rebel-flag-worshipping gunman became both catalyst and premise for a step that southern political leaders had been at once eager but too timid to take. The flag issue has long been the proverbial elephant not simply in the room but squarely astride the shoulders of southern GOP governors and congressmen, not to mention business leaders.

April 6, 2015. The American flag and South Carolina state flag fly above the confederate flag at the statehouse in Columbia, South Carolina.

Not only did the flag pose a threat to party unity, but clinging to such a divisive and seemingly hostile and provincial symbol is hardly indicative of a cosmopolitan state or community ready to welcome global companies and their employees. Make no mistake about it, the moves by Nikki Haley and her counterparts in other southern states amounted in no small sense to what a proponent of ditching the Confederate insignia on the Mississippi state flag once called a “strategic business decision.” Without questioning the sincerity of their expressions of horror and grief over the Charleston tragedy in the least, distancing their state and their party from what so many see as an emblem of hatred and persecution seems to have a huge upside for southern Republicans, especially those with national political ambitions like South Carolina’s Senator Lindsey Graham or perhaps even, its governor as well.

Newsweek’s decision in July 2010 to herald Nikki Haley on its cover as “The Face of the New South” may have startled some at the time, but this has become a common trope in recent days. Its aptness, however, rests not in Haley’s skin color or gender but in her politics, which epitomize the GOP’s gradual shift over the last generation or so away from its old blatantly racialized “southern strategy” to a new, ostensibly “colorblind” but hardly race-neutral conservatism anchored in a coldly pragmatic, pro-corporate worldview.

All of that said, albeit 150 years too late, the move by Haley and other southern leaders to finally furl the Confederate flag is a welcome one nonetheless. History, after all, offers too few examples of right things done for precisely the right reasons to afford us the luxury of being picky.

The post Why Governor Haley Took Down the Confederate Flag appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

I found myself assigned to interview retirees in New Hampshire as a part of a survey of long-term care facilities. The subjects were Anglo, God-fearing, patriotic men who found it strange for a young disabled Latino to inquire about their personal lives. I later learned that the Brandeis faculty also had qualms about sending me into this uncharted territory. However, after shooting pool with me, these elderly gentlemen invited me for a snowmobile ride (my first-ever). We were soon like good friends, and thus the surveys were completed successfully.

Looking back now, I can see this experience was a prescient microcosm of one of the greatest challenges America faces today: addressing the sometimes conflicting needs of the two fastest growing population segments in the country—the elderly and ethnic minorities. It also shows us how California can lead the way

The U.S. is facing two key milestone years: In 2030, the last of the aging baby boomers all will have turned age 65, and in 2045, we will have become a majority-minority nation. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that in 2044, non-Hispanic whites will drop below 50 percent of the population, and Hispanics—America’s largest racial/ethnic minority—will surpass 25 percent.

These years can be benchmarks by which to measure how we respond to a changing demographic landscape. Between 2015 and 2055, the Latino population will double in size, from 56.8 million to 112.3 million. In the same time period, the number of adults over 65 will have nearly doubled (from 47.8 million to 92.5 million), creating the largest “senior citizen” group in our history. Fifty-seven percent of those individuals will be non-Hispanic white, and 21 percent will be Hispanic.

What does this mean for the future of our country? Will fear and insecurity create racial discrimination and ageism, or will we have the foresight to prepare for, invest in, and embrace this new America?

The current state of our political discourse isn’t promising. Social Security could become a defining issue in the 2016 election. Its solvency hangs over politicians and the public on both sides of the debate. Immigration reform, meanwhile, is stuck in limbo, hampered in part by an undercurrent of nativism. Are we destined to forever have these conflicts, or can we find common cause, accept the reality of the demographic changes, and use them to our advantage? I believe my personal journey, and recent California history, provide insight into the path forward.

My mother, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, raised nine children on her own in Salinas, California. We were fortunate to have the benefits of public housing, a robust social welfare safety net, and of course, a mother with strong values. As a result, all nine of her children are college graduates with professional careers. If there is a message in our personal journey, it is to recognize and accept that America is a nation of immigrants, and the true task will be to adapt to a future, which holds the promise of reconciliation rather than generational and racial conflict.

I saw first-hand how my grandmother (who came with her family to California fleeing the Mexican Revolution) and mother faced discrimination, and now that I am an “elder,” I have seen how the Mexican community here acquired political and economic influence over the past half century. Yet I also see how other parts of the country (particularly New England, the Midwest, and the South) are only now coming to terms with waves of immigrants and facing the discomfort we once had in California.

We faced immense struggles (deportations, riots) in adapting to constant demographic shifts, but over many years, Californians became accustomed to change. California, which became a majority-minority state by 1999, continues to be a harbinger for the nation. Our struggles with propositions 187 (to deny social services to undocumented immigrants) and 209 (to end affirmative action) galvanized undocumented persons to naturalize and vote, giving impetus to a powerful set of Latino and Asian elected officials. California is the world’s seventh largest economy in part because of the interconnections of its immigrant groups. The Korean, Persian, Central American, Mexican, Chinese, and Armenian diasporas in California are second in size only to their home countries. These and other factors can show the nation (and older voters) that notwithstanding unsettling demographic trends, in time, regions can and will benefit from the presence of these groups.

With time, acculturation, and intermarriages, we have reached an equilibrium where a majority of Californians today feel that immigration is good for the state. This gives me hope that, as immigrants assimilate, the rest of America can adjust and adapt to these demographic changes.

Indeed, demographics suggest that America will be forced to adapt. Anglos make up 76 percent of baby boomers, a large proportion of whom will require long-term care assistance, whether in institutional facilities or at home. A rising percentage of their caregivers (currently 27 percent) are minorities and immigrants.

And it’s not just the caregiving where these two groups will have to learn to work with each other: As these same baby boomers sell their homes, who will the buyers be? The aging Anglo population is having fewer children. But will the growing, younger minority populations have the education, jobs, and financial resources to buy those homes?

The United States is aging, but with fertility rates above replacement levels, thanks largely to Latinos and Asian-Americans, many of whom live in California. These groups have been able to acculturate thanks to a civic culture that fosters engagement in our democratic processes. In turn, Latino culture and Asian economic investments enable cities such as Los Angeles to remain viable, and the cultural infusion of foods, new ideas, popular music, and capital investments keep the our country and state vibrant.

We must recognize that all Americans have a common stake and self-interest in our mutual success. As I learned in working with New Hampshire retirees decades ago, by drawing on our personal backgrounds, understanding individual concerns, and appealing to our good sense and compassion, we can forge unlikely bonds with one another.

Now is the time to make this compelling case to the baby boomer generation. I know that my children and grandchildren will grow and age in a nation that is much different than it was in the last century. By embracing and supporting who we have been and who we are becoming, we can be confident that America will continue to prosper and be a beacon for the world.

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