The workplace experiences of BAME professional women: understanding experiences at the intersection

Abstract

Situated within workplace equality and discrimination scholarship, this paper focuses on intersectional identity narratives. We seek to better understand the workplace experiences of British Black, Asian, and minority ethnicity (BAME) professional women, and how these experiences impact on a range of wellbeing outcomes.

The absence of research relating to BAME professional women reflects a failure to consider intersectional organizational identities and experiences. We aim to problematize the existence of single and static identity categories within intersectional analyses and the challenge they represent. We engage a non‐traditional methodological approach, conducting real‐time online written interviews with professional British BAME women. We consider the important interplays at the intersection of minority ethnicity, gender, and nationality. The main themes to emerge were (a) experiences of misperceived identity imposition, whereby such social treatment had implications for participants’ well‐being and (b) the use of strategic essentialism by participants on the basis of nationality, ethnicity and gender, an innovative finding in intersectional research. We conclude that a focus on identity categories such as ethnicity or race and gender alone may lead to the further constraining and classifying of certain individuals. To avoid this there is need to consider intersectional identity experiences in light of nationality and the disparate underpinning systems of domination.