Interpreting Silence and Voice in the Workplace

Abstract

This article began as an exploration of Black and White women's efforts to address inequality and make changes in the workplace, but we soon turned the mirror back onto ourselves as Black and White women engaged in change efforts. Our struggles over interpreting the data revealed how Black and White women struggle to make sense of whether the other is a reliable ally. Black women wonder whether White women will raise their voices or be silent yet again. White women wonder whether Black women can trust that silence is sometimes a strategy. Charting a course through defensiveness, questioning, and some distinct "aha" moments led us to understand our phenomenon and ourselves more deeply. We end this article at a way station, not a final destination, with open questions about the prospects for cross-race collaboration.

Prozac leadership and the limits of positive thinking

“…Blackman and Sadler-Smith, 2009;Morrison and Milliken, 2003). Studies reveal how the silencing of those in subordinate positions can occur through acts of power (Brown and Coupland, 2005) that limit conflict (Perlow and Repenning, 2009) and exercise control by reproducing inequalities such as gender (Simpson and Lewis, 2005) and race (Bell et al, 2003). 10.…”

‘You Just Had to Get on with It’: Exploring the Persistence of Gender Inequality through Women’s Career Histories

“…Studies that presume the existence of a language through which voice can be articulated may be flawed and silence might not be the choice it is sometimes assumed to be (Donaghey et al, 2011). While legislation and social change may offer a surface voice, discursive practices within norms create deep silencing (Simpson and Lewis, 2005) and the voices of women (and potentially other disadvantaged groups) are muted, stifled or silenced (Bell et al, 2003; Chappell and Bowes-Sperry, 2015). Participants had no language through which to express any different concept of career and their right to demand anything better was suppressed/silenced (Ward and Winstanley, 2003).…”

“…It follows Acker’s (1990) influential thesis of how silence around gendered issues disadvantages women. Discourse can reproduce silence as a form of suppression, censorship or self-protection (Ward and Winstanley, 2003) – the voices of women (and other disadvantaged groups) are muted, stifled or silenced (Bell et al, 2003; Ward and Winstanley, 2003). Influential feminist theorists such as Kristeva, Cixous and Irigaray go further, arguing that women lack a language through which to speak, so must use language that reflects and reinforces male dominance (see Fotaki, 2013; Fotaki et al, 2014; Phillips et al, 2014).…”

A Similar, Marginal Place in the Academy

“…At the same time it normalizes the experience of Black men as the Black experience and White women’s experiences as typically female thus reinforcing each of these groups’ visibility and privilege (McIntosh, 1993). This leaves Black women left to figure out how to be as well as how to lead in a work environment that does not fully see or hear them (Bell, Meyerson, Nkomo, & Scully, 2003; Settles, Cortina, Stewart, & Malley, 2007). Perhaps too frequently their ability to succeed in work environments in which they are underrepresented may reflect a strategy that reinforces the identities of other groups while marginalizing their own.…”