I'm a white woman. Here's how white men lie about their climb to the top. | Opinion
If you are any kind of 'successful' woman in academia or industry, you likely benefited from affirmative action whether you are aware of it or not. White men are shown the ladder from birth.
Janet Petro, NASA’s acting administrator, wrote the following about diversity, equity and inclusion in a memo on Jan. 22: “These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination.”
Relevant things about me:
- I am a white woman.
- I grew up in a low socioeconomic status family from Appalachia.
- I am a first-generation college student.
- I am a smart, hardworking American.
Despite #4, I had very little chance of going to graduate school thanks to #1-3.
If not for the McNair Scholars Program, I would not be an associate professor with 30 peer-reviewed publications in my field today. I am a proud beneficiary of affirmative action.
Women benefit from affirmative action
We all know women who are recipients of affirmative action.
If you are any kind of "successful" woman in academia or industry, you likely benefited from affirmative action whether you are aware of it or not.
This has nothing to do with how smart women are, how hard we work, how qualified we are. It has to do with the fact that powerful men have not wanted us in their spaces. Women and minorities have been forcefully and sometimes violently barred from the traditional spheres of wealth and influence. Affirmative action is one way to correct the wrongful exclusion that has occurred throughout history.
People will say, “But talented white men are being passed over for less qualified women and minorities.”
Others have done a better job at unpacking that faulty logic, so I want to focus on this: Those white men had help, too.
White men lie about 'the ladder'
Today, no one climbs the ladder unless someone before them made the ladder, gave them access to the ladder and demonstrated how to use the ladder. White men are shown the ladder from birth.
They are shown how to climb it successfully. They can even block other people’s access to it.
Women and minorities aren’t privy to the ladder from birth. Sometimes people forget to tell us about it. Sometimes they don’t teach us how to use it. Sometimes people actively hide the ladder from us.
Worst yet, they may lie and tell us it doesn’t even exist.
We ask, and they say, “What ladder, you silly girl?”
White men have been lying about climbing the ladder on their own. They are not successful due to talent, but because they have the access and support necessary to climb, and fewer active barriers.
White men have been getting affirmative action all along from other white men. What the rest of us have been asking for, fighting for, is the same access to and support to climb the ladder.
I don't know if Janet Petro has personally benefited from affirmative action, but she was in only the second graduating class from West Point to contain any women in 1981. For her to oppose DEI programs is hypocritical and it shows a deep ignorance of the history that has made affirmative action necessary.
Kira Bailey is a West Virginia native and associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Ohio Wesleyan University. Her path to earning a Ph.D. began as a McNair Scholar at Concord University, class of 2007. This column originally appeared in the Columbus Dispatch.