With more role models on TV and at home, melanin seems less important than it does in the UK, says Carlene Thomas-Bailey in New York
It's an interesting week to be a woman in New York, and in particular a black woman.
This week sees the UN General Assembly convene to consider the Millennium Development goals and its commitment to women, Newsweek publishes its 2011 global women's progress report (highlighting the fact that women hold the "highest political offices from Thailand to Brazil, Costa Rica and Australia", and there is the second annual Women: Inspiration and Enterprise (WIE) symposium in Soho, New York, hosted by Arianna Huffington, Sarah Brown and Donna Karan.
A panel on "What it means to be a woman now" struck a chord, as it shone a spotlight on successful black women, from co-founder of the conference Dee Poku (former head of international marketing at Paramount Pictures), to the model Iman and editor-at-large of Essence magazine, Mikki Taylor. As a black woman in the US media, there are now myriad opportunities. Call it the Michelle Obama effect, or the fact that there are simply more media channels and avenues open to black women in my industry, but it seems like it really is a great time to be a black woman in this country. I'm in awe of the number of black presenters on TV and in top editorial positions at mainstream magazines, such as newly appointed fashion features editor at Glamour magazine Rajni Jacques or Paper women's market editor Zandile Blay, not to mention Kenya Hunt, global fashion editor of the Metro newspaper in the US.
Then there is Soledad O'Brien, an anchor and special correspondent for CNN/US who produces whole segments highlighting the issues affecting people of colour, and Robin Givhan, headhunted from the Washington Post earlier this year by Newsweek because of her Pulitzer prize-winning fashion writing.
There is less of a feeling in the US that you have to wait for someone of colour to step aside to make room for you; there isn't just one Trevor McDonald (as wonderful as he is) presenting the news: a sentiment shared by a number of black British actors and entertainers, such as comedian Gina Yashere, who said to Hannah Pool in an interview with this newspaper: "I can't wait for Lenny Henry to die just so I can get a TV show". She is now selling out arenas in New York and LA.
Mikki Taylor at Essence also believes this is a good time to be a black woman in the US: "We are the women whose time has come. You hear it in their conversations, we are children of the dream, we're the outpouring of those who paved the way for us, who made it possible for us to own our lives now and be who we are. I think this has been coming a long time and I'm excited to see what we'll do with this," she says.
Like many women I've been helped by role models and mentors along the way. My mother cultivated my love of journalism in the first place by bringing home a poster of successful black journalist Claudia Jones [who is celebrated each year in the NUJ Claudia Jones lecture], and sticking it on the wall in my room. She then found a youth journalism club called Children's Express for me to attend. June Sarpong, who ran the WIE conference, also mentored me when I was a television runner on T4 [the youth show on Channel 4] back in the early 2000s by offering me real support and advice after she went from a receptionist at Channel 4 to presenting, with the help of mentors. Through June's success and my mother's belief in me, I never believed I couldn't have a career in the media because of the amount of melanin in my skin.
Of course it's not all good news: there still isn't gender equality in the workforce ? recent figures from the US Department of Labour revealed that women in the US earn "81% of the median weekly earnings of their male counterparts" (a similar pattern of gender inequality in the boardroom is noticeable in the UK too). Also, even among women there are disparities across race in the US: "women's inflation-adjusted earnings grew significantly from 1979 to 2010. During this period inflation-adjusted earnings for white women rose by 33%, compared to 25% for black women," showing that "growth in real earnings for white women outpaced that of their black counterparts".
In addition to this, author and Stanford law professor Ralph Richard Banks has just launched a book called Is Marriage for White People? looking at dating and romance in black America. Banks looks at why successful black women are "half as likely as white women to be married, and more than three times as likely as white women never to marry". By conducting over 100 interviews with people of colour he focuses on arguments that are prolific in the community about black women significantly outperforming black men in school and in university, not to mention the high rates of incarceration for black men, which poses a challenge for women who want to marry within their race.
Globally, black women aren't fairing very well either, whether it be high rates of mortality in childbirth in Africa, women and children suffering the destruction and the slow rebuilding of Haiti, which has largely been ignored in recent months (once the celebrity angle disappeared), or an interesting fact I found out from a midwife and White Ribbon Alliance advocate from Tanzania at the WIE symposium, that pregnant women in her country have to walk up to 30km to get to health care facilities. So what do you think, is it a great time to be a woman now? Is it a great time to be a black woman? Do we need more mentors? Have we only begun to take the steps needed to create change and what is needed next?
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