Earlier this week I was part of a team that spoke on the issue of covering in the workplace. What is covering?
Covering is the art of concealing something about yourself to lessen attention to a given characteristic. This includes downplaying certain parts of your identity such as religion, race, disability, sexual orientation to avoid feelings of anxiety, frustration or fear*.
When I started working in corporate America I didn’t bring my whole self to work. I work in a predominantly white, Asian and male field – IT consulting. And so I figured that if I put my head down and worked hard, the fact that I was an African woman wouldn’t show. Weird right? It’s kind of hard to erase the thing that is most obvious about you. I realized that my keeping silent was a disservice to women. Not only women but black women, and not only a disservice to black women but to African women. I realized that I couldn’t continue covering as there were so many skewed notions of who Africans were. I also realized that there were so many skewed notions of who black women were. Finally, the more I looked into covering I found that 66% of women and 67% of women of color cover in the workplace*.
So I decided that it was time to be authentic. It was time to bring my authentic self to the workplace. I started talking about my background as a Kenyan – Congolese woman. I talked about my weaves and braids. I wore African print and head wraps to the office. I brought African food to the office and shared gifts from my travels when I went home. Something amazing happened when I began bringing my whole self to work:
- I was less frustrated by stereotypes as through my sharing I was changing perspectives
- I realized that part of my professional brand determined how much growth I had in the company
- More opportunities opened up for me as I shared and opened up about who I am, I built up my trust equity in the firm
- I got better at my role as I was passionately engaged with my coworkers and clients without fear or anxiety about my heritage.
Covering is a very real phenomenon in the workplace. Have you experienced this at work?
