| Laura M. Padilla
excerpted from: Laura M. Padilla, Intersectionality
And Positionality: Situating Women of Color in The Affirmative Action
Dialogue, 66 Fordham Law Review 843, 853-885 (December, 1997)(432
footnotes omitted)
The fourth myth is that affirmative action stigmatizes beneficiaries.
Critics claim that affirmative action results in continued negative
stereotypes of beneficiaries and causes self-doubt and low self-esteem
among those beneficiaries who believe they have attained their positions
because of affirmative action. For most beneficiaries, this is simply
inaccurate--no evidence exists that the majority of affirmative action
beneficiaries are stigmatized.
Even if there is some truth to the stigma criticism for occasional
beneficiaries, for women of color who have been conditioned to feel low
self- esteem and self doubt, the experience is hardly novel. For
example, I have spoken with many women of color about their law school
experiences of attending class, hearing a professor say something
demeaning about women of color, noticing no reaction among their
classmates, and ultimately wondering, "Is it just me?" To
illustrate, at a conference at Harvard Law School organized by the Women
of Color Collective, when one panelist described the "is it just
me" phenomenon, women throughout the audience nodded their heads in
understanding.
To the extent there is self-doubt or stigma among women of color,
there are many explanations other than, or in addition to, affirmative
action. For example, women of color already may lack confidence because
of family upbringing or cultural or social conditioning, regardless of
the existence of affirmative action. Furthermore, many women of color
have been treated with disrespect and the expectation that they will not
succeed-- too often self-fulfilling prophecies. A large percentage of
women of color enter traditional occupations such as housecleaning,
childcare, and other service/servant types of jobs. There are few women
who look like them in positions of power or looking after them and their
interests. These factors are much more likely to cause low self-esteem
or stigma than affirmative action, which could give them a boost out of
the colored feminization of poverty.
Regardless of affirmative action, women of color's qualifications are
often suspect in the eyes of their colleagues or peers. Until we truly
have a color-blind society, however, people will always wonder whether
women of color qualify for positions. Women of color often have to work
harder just to get the respect that their white male colleagues enjoy as
a birth right. The presumption favoring white males seems to be that
they are qualified until they prove otherwise. With women of color, the
presumption seems to be that they are unqualified until they prove
otherwise.
Blacks and whites must face the fact that affirmative action has made
no significant difference in the way whites look at blacks. Competent
and successful blacks are still seen as exceptional. Before and since
affirmative action, most white people see another white as competent
until proven incompetent and a black person as incompetent until proved
competent. Thus, there is little risk that affirmative action would
wound our self-esteem to the point of disabling us, and it certainly
would not be the worst wound we have borne. We would welcome some open
doors even with the potential accompanying "stigma risk." This
risk is much more attractive than joblessness or low paying work.
Furthermore, any stigma- attached downside to affirmative action does
not outweigh the upside of providing opportunities for women of color
that would not otherwise exist. |
