Tokenism, Discrimination and Intersectionality in the Workplace Essay Example

ABSTRACT

There’s no debate that the social, political and economic climate over the course of the last two years has indefinitely shaped our perception and behavior in both the personal and orgazational settings but can we use this knowledge and power of influence to initiative change for the better? Let’s dive into the  negative implications associated with tokenism, discrimination and intersectionality in both personal and organizational contexts and how we can use our personal influence to drive change to pivot our perception, behavior and attitude to be  more inclusive and diverse across all sectors of society. 

TOKENISM, DISCRIMINATION AND INTERSECTIONALITY 

Tokenism is modernly defined as  “the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality within a workforce.” (JobMingler, 2020)  Tokenism is an artificial form of diversity that demonstrates an appearance of equality without actually achieving it. It allows organizations to “check that box” without taking action on implementing a diverse and inclusive work culture. 

Cambridge Dictionary defines discrimination as  “treating a person or particular group of people differently, especially in a worse way from the way in which you treat other people, because of their skin color, sex, sexuality, etc.” (Cambridge Dictionary , Discrimination) The United States Equal Employement Opportunity Commission (EEOC), an organization that enforces federal law associated with discrimination in the workplace, has provided sanctions to protect employees under the categorization of these eight protected classes: race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity, or national origin. 

Intersectionality, a term that was formally introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw in regards to critical race theory in 1989, is defined as the the unique nature of identity categorization where an individual is faced with an overlapping discriminatory disadvantage, such as a person of color who identifies with the LGBTQ+ community. (Berg, 2021) Over the course of the last forty years as critical race theory has been studied the orginal introduction of the term has been shaped to include a variety of identities including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age and disability status.  Individually these identities are often targeted for discrimination and when combined with one or more it creates an intersectionality where the disadvantage is increased significantly. 

NEGATIVE IMPLICATIONS IN THE WORKPLACE

So what does this mean in the organizational context? Over the course of the last two years there have been an increasing number of studies conducted that have proven that tokenism, discrimination and intersectionality can have negative ramifications for organizations beyond the individual targeted. 

Let’s dive into the risks that these behaviors can influence across the entire organization.  It conceals inertness, allowing organizations to feel comfortable by meeting quotes or a numeric target without actually making controbutions to improve fostering an inclusive, diverse organization.  It creates an inaccurate sense of security to leadership given that theres a disproportionate amount of representation in regards to decision-making that influence the direction of the company.   It hinders business performance and growth, according to the McKinsey study, racially diverse executive teams provided an advantage of 35% higher EBIT and 33% more long-term value creation and have a 35% performance advantage compared to those that do not. (Myers, 2020) 

While anti-discriminatory laws have been in force for the better half of fifty years, statistics show that it is still very rampant within organizations across the country and as nearly two million complaints were formally filed with the EEOC  from 1997-2018 with a resolve rate of less than twenty-percent on an annual basis. (Taylor, 2021)

IN THE PERSONAL CONTEXT

Now that we’ve explored the negative implications of tokenism, discrimintation and intersectionality within the organizational context it’s important that I outline my personal experience on how it has shaped my perception and behavior in becoming an allied trusted leader in advocating for equality and the positive implications that’s had in my professional background. It’s very important for me to begin saying that, transparently speaking, I’ve been very fortunate not to have personally experienced the negative beavhiors of tokenism, discrimination and intersectionality throughout my career, however, I understand that I’ve been very privileged in that standpoint and must act on my privilege to initiative change. Understanding the negative implications that may peers, colleagues and employees have personal experienced within the workplace, I have made it a life-long mission to continue to educate myself on DEI initiatives an to spread awareness to ensure that my employees, team members and colleagues alike can recognize this behavior and stand-up against it to advocate for positive change. 

CONCLUSION

As we’ve developed a deep understanding of how tokenism, discrimination and intersectionality appears in the workplace and the negative implications it has on the entire organization it’s important  to shift our behavior and continue the conversation to inform, educate and implement inclusivity and diversity across all aspects of our world, in both the personal and organizational context.