#64 - Woman Working... While Black | Jacquie Abram

Women’s Health, Wisdom, and. . . WINE!  is a weekly conversation with practitioners, providers, patients, and healers about complex reproductive medicine and women’s health challenges, the value of an integrative approach to these challenges, many of the women’s health topics you’re already thinking about but uncomfortable talking about, and my personal favorite. . . WINE!

July is Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month (also known as BIPOC Mental Health Month). Formally recognized in June 2008, BIPOC Mental Health Month was created to bring awareness to the unique struggles that underrepresented groups face in regard to mental illness in the US.

Working at the intersection of racism and sexism, Black women face vast obstacles in the workplace that can lead to undue trauma all in the name of making a living and providing for their families. 

• We are overrepresented in minimum-wage jobs and almost nonexistent in the C-suite.
• We face bias and systemic barriers in hiring and promotions.
• We get less support from managers and sponsors
• We are often the only Black person in the room.
• We face a greater variety of microaggressions and instances of everyday racism.
• And on top of all of this, we are paid less.

The barriers Black women face aren’t limited to the workplace. Right now, our resilience is being tested in unprecedented ways.As evidenced by the high morbidity and mortality rates of Black women, we are confronting over AND covert anti-Black sentiment in our healthcare system, namely in hospitals when we're the most vulnerable.

We’ve been on the front lines of the fights for racial and gender equity for far too long. More than ever, it’s important for everyone to be aware of what Black women are up against and understand how to be part of the solution.

And still we rise.

About Jacquie:
Jacquie Abram is the international best-selling and award-winning author of Hush Money: How One Woman Proved Systemic Racism in Her Workplace and Kept Her Job. Before Jacquie began her journey as an author and DEI/Anti-racism Consultant, she had a career in higher education that spanned nearly two decades. Throughout her career, she experienced racism in the workplace,the kind of racism that is more covert, hidden, and harder to prove.  

Hush Money is much more than just another book about systemic racism. For employees, it’s a roadmap, a survival guide for fighting racism and other forms of discrimination in the workplace. For employers, it’s a compass for finding and identifying covert racism in the organization. For allies who have never experienced racism in the workplace, it’s a powerful way to step into the shoes of a racial discrimination victim.

Resources Mentioned:
Hush Money: How One Woman Proved Systemic Racism in Her Workplace and Kept Her Job
Hush Money: The Cost of Being Black in Corporate America