Young Black Women’s Experiences of Negotiating Dominant Cultures in Corporate South Africa

Abstract

This study was interested in understanding how young Black African women, through their subjective experiences and the stories they tell about themselves have developed particular (professional) identities and how they negotiate or resist the raced, gendered and class identities. It also aimed to understand their experiences of marginalisation in the corporate/private sector. A qualitative study was conducted where five Black African women between the ages of 25 and 40 from Johannesburg, South Africa, participated in narrative interviews. An adaptation of Wengraf’s (2011) Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM) as well as thematic analysis were used to understand the stories of the women’s career journeys. The key findings of the study were that assimilating the values and norms of the dominant class during their schooling years facilitated their transition into tertiary institutions and the workplace. During the recruitment process and once employed, participants felt the assimilative pressure to conform to the dominant culture or risk being excluded or unemployed. Internships and graduate programmes were seen as crucial stepping stones into the workplace. Participants oscillated between feelings of belonging and alienation throughout their career journeys but reported that having supportive managers increased their sense of inclusion and belonging. They also experienced a sense of precarity due to the gendered wage gap and a pervasive sense of job insecurity. There is a need for organisations to understand how women are differently included in the workplace, to provide greater mentorship to those who are starting out, and to have an appreciation of the subtle ways in which the dominant culture works to leave some young women behind.