Interview with Bee Hui Yeh, Founder of The Power of We

Catherine: I want to talk a little bit about the work that you’ve done with intersectionality. So for every dollar paid to white Non-Hispanic men, Latinas are paid 54 cents, Native American women are paid 57 cents, Black Women 62 cents, white Non-Hispanic women 79 cents, Asian women 90 cents. Why do you think that this is? And how can organizations better account for intersectional such as this?

Bee: I think, to give a brief definition of intersectionality, it’s a framework for understanding how aspects of an individual’s social and political and other dimensions of their identity, race, class, sexuality, ability, physical appearance, they’re combining to create unique modes of discrimination and privilige. So being Asian, female, able-bodied, that is, there’s different parts of my identity that are marginalized and there’s different parts that give me privilege and everybody experiences that in a different way. In the social constructs that we live and move through. That, just to give a definition of it, I think the reason why it’s so important is because, when work isn’t intersectional, when we create climate solutions, for example, and we’re just thinking about one majority that’s where they fail because while the problem is global in nature and systemic everybody is not experiencing it in the same way. Just like not everybody is experiencing Covid in the same way. So the short answer to your question about the wage gap is because systemic sexism exists in our corporate world, and you layer on top of that systemic racism and then all these other marginalized identities of the workforce that people experience as they move through the corporate world, which is built by, and run by, a very entrenched white authority, male dominated landscape. And when you compound that over a career, so someone getting into a first job at a salary that is unconsciously or consciously created based on all of those marginalized identities and then every time that person tries to jump and renegotiate their salary: they’ve started at a different starting point, a lower starting point and every jump that they make they’re working through those lenses that people, you know unconscious bias that people, recruiters or HR department, and honestly it’s not down to individuals all the time, it’s systemic. There’s just so many forces that are feeding into why these wage gaps exist. So there’s lots of different factors as to why this happens, there’s a difference in industries that can break it down a bit, there’s a difference in industries or jobs worked between, let’s just take men and women, for example, when you think about the gender gap between STEM careers and how most Science Technology Engineering Math careers are male dominated, and trades like building and construction, which is also male dominated, versus some of the more traditional “female” dominated industries, like child care, there’s a big wage difference there already. So industry matters. Difference of years of experience: a lot of women are still leaving the workforce when they start a family. And that’s usually because heterosexual couples, where you’re thinking about who makes more and just the economics of it, and so women are disproportionately driven out of the workforce to accommodate caregiving. That has to do with how company’s maternity and paternity policies look like, and how to make that more equitable. There’s also a difference in hours worked as related to health care. And the, of course, the big topic of discrimination and how gener, even with gender-based paid discrimination being illegal, it’s still happens all the time because of unconscious biases, and the systemic nature of what we’re working in. So, what can we do about this? There’s a lot of work and consultants in the gender pay gap disparities space specifically, I think the general recommendation that I would have is: employers absolutely need to start working on this and thinking about it and not thinking that it’s someone else’s problem. Every company can and should be transparent about their own data, like the numbers and statistics that you shared, every company needs to do a deep audit in terms of where they stand against that data and set a benchmark that feels equitable and inclusive for them. And then not hide until they get to a better place, but share it and be transparent and stay accountable to their current workforce and future workforce, in terms of how they’re moving through closing the wage gap. So, if you can’t quantify the problem you can’t solve it. I see so many companies, in the clean energy space in particular, which I know the best, that aren’t even talking about it and don’t even know where they stand in the problem. 

Catherine: Sticking on this topic of intersectionality, let’s see how it relates to BLM, the Black Lives Matter movement. So Kimberly Crenshaw, who’s the Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum, she developed the theory of intersectionality. As well as created the hashtag, say her name campaign, in light of the lesser-known African American female victims of police brutality. In fact, she gave a TED talk, in which the majority of the audience admitted knowing far more African American male victims as opposed to African American female victims. Why are police brutality victims that are African American men, much more known on average than African American female victims? And why is it important to recognize distinctions like this?

Bee: That’s a big heavy topic. Yeah, that even within this larger injustice around police brutality, and how the black community has had to work through all of this suppression over centuries in just the United States, it’s global but let’s just focus on the United States, how within that we forget and put more news time, put more effort and energy, and awareness building on African American men or black men versus black women. That’s why intersectionality is so important because all of these different dimensions of our identity are knitted together. And you can’t really peel it apart. I think what’s super important to peel out here is the concept of complicity. That, having some marginalized identities, doesn’t mean you’re absolved from doing any wrong. So as an Asian American immigrant female, I have a lot of anti-racist work I have to actively do, to be a true ally for my black and brown peers. And to really be an advocate for Black Lives Matter, for trans folk, we talked about that community, for the LGBT community, for these different marginalized communities that have been otherized, meaning they have not been put in the center of our conversation. They have not been invited in, they’re not listened to. I think, just in the dichotomy of male versus female, maybe being a black man you might think: there’s no way I could be racist or sexist. That’s absolutely not true, we all have work to do and that’s why I want to focus in on this concept of complicity. We need to look in the mirror and we need to each actively think about what we can do to be anti-racist. What are my privileges and where do I suffer from a lot of the systemic issues that we’ve talked about now? The worst thing that you can do, apart from thinking you have no work to do, is to compare. Like, who has it harder? Is it harder to be an Asian female or is it harder to be a Latino man? I think the point is you need to adopt a view that Diversity Equity and Inclusion is critical. And to understand where you can fall into the path towards achieving those things, in your workplace, in your friend group, in whatever communities that you’re active. So, I think, I want to really reiterate: we all have work to do and that work looks different for each of us but none of us are absolved from it, based on our marginalized identities and comparing really puts you in a place of a zero-sum game rather than thinking about not just widening the pie but reallocating resources and access to power and inclusion in a way that really achieves equity, rather than just saying if one person advances that means that I am falling behind. 

Catherine: Yeah, it’s really interesting. It is a heavy topic but it’s a topic that I think we have to talk about.