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Jun 2020
1h 3m

Sisterhood Is Critical to Racial Justice

Harvard Business Review
About this episode

Work is among the many places where white people have long been indifferent to the hardships black colleagues face. One way white women can advance racial justice is by building trusting relationships with black women. This week, we’re revisiting two episodes from Season 2 that explore women’s solidarity at work: “Sisterhood Is Scarce” and “Sisterhood Is Power.”

We talk with professors Ella Bell Smith and Stella Nkomo about how race, gender, and class play into the different professional experiences and relationships white women and black women have. They explain how those differences can drive women apart, drawing from the research and stories in their book, Our Separate Ways.

Then we talk with professors Tina Opie and Verónica Rabelo about the power of workplace sisterhood. We discuss steps, as well as common snags, to forming deep and lasting connections with our female colleagues.

Our HBR reading list:

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Email us: womenatwork@hbr.org

Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.

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