When I learned of this year’s International Women’s Day theme #BreakTheBias, it hit a rather personal note for me, and at first, I wasn’t entirely sure why. As I considered the theme – the goal of living in a gender-equal world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination – I realized that all too often, it is women who stand in the way of other women advancing and achieving their personal and professional aspirations.
The road to breaking bias must start with each of us before we can ask others to do the same – we must be a living example of what creating a culture of belonging looks like, where everyone, not just women, feels comfortable showing up as their whole selves.
If you had asked me almost 30 years ago as a college freshman how my hair would break bias and change the trajectory of my life, I would have been dumbfounded. Today, in retrospect, I know that the start of my curly girl journey was a pivotal experience in seeing and appreciating other women for who they inherently are.
Here’s what I learned from my curls.
FINDING A COMMON THREAD: CURLY GIRLS STICK TOGETHER
I grew up in the suburbs of Boston in a tight-knit Italian American family. My town was primarily families like mine, where diversity largely meant the difference between Italian, Irish, or Portuguese heritage. In August 1995, I arrived as a frizzy-haired, wide-eyed, naïve girl at American University in Washington, DC. I’d chosen to room in a co-ed dorm on one of two all-female floors. There I was immediately thrust into a diverse environment with girls from not just the United States but the world; girls from all grade levels, races, ethnicities, and socio-economic backgrounds.
Though genuinely curious to get to know my dormmates better, I was intimidated to voice those desires. After all, for the first time in my life, I was acutely aware that my experiences differed greatly from those around me. Within a few weeks, there were three African American girls, a freshman, and two sophomores, that I befriended. We saw past our differences and created a genuine connection based on our common experiences. It didn’t take long for us to really develop a strong bond, to my surprise and delight – I guess being forced to live with people has that effect.
Our relationship was cemented when one of them said to me, “We have to do something about your hair… You know, us curly girls have to stick together.” I was shocked, was this one of those insults disguised as a compliment?
To my pleasant surprise, it was not at all what I thought.
OPEN TO NEW INSIGHTS: MY CURLY GIRL JOURNEY BEGINS
Growing up in a largely white, European community, no one I knew had hair like mine. When I was young, my mother’s answer to my unruly hair was to brush it out and braid it until I complained so bitterly that she simply had it all cut off into a pixie cut. As my hair grew back, it grew more and more curly. My new friends saw that I was struggling to manage my curly hair, and after weeks of watching me do “everything wrong,” they genuinely wanted to help me.
Although I tried everything I could to groom and style my hair, I usually failed – thus requiring me to tie it back most of the time.
This all changed with my new friends’ insights. They taught me the benefits of not washing my hair every day, how to only brush it when fully conditioned and wet to decrease breakage, how to dry it using little to no heat, and how to wrap it at night to preserve the curls. They shared every tip, trick, hair tool, and product in their arsenal with me. They acknowledged when I had a good hair day and supported me when I became frustrated with the process. In a little less than a year, I was officially a proud member of the curly girls.
SHARED EXPERIENCES HELP US GROW
I wanted to repay my friends for their kindness. In searching for the perfect expression of my gratitude, I realized the one thing we all missed about being away from home was a big family meal after church on Sundays. I began hosting Sunday homemade suppers in my dorm!
Each Saturday morning in my small town in Massachusetts, one or both of my parents would go to the local Italian market and gather all the ingredients I required to make Sunday supper. My mom would include our family recipes for me to follow, and Dad would lovingly package everything in dry-ice and overnight it to me in DC. The care package arrived early on Sunday mornings, and I immediately got to work preparing the meal. The meals varied weekly – gnocchi, pasta, and meatballs, chicken cutlets with mashed potatoes, chicken soup, lasagna – but always included some kind of salad and crusty, fresh bread. The conversations around that table spanned every imaginable topic – school, dating, music, race, fashion, internships, family – the list was endless.
We laughed, we cried, we got angry, and we didn’t hold anything back, but we always remained friends. Looking back at those suppers I realize now that I learned more at that table than in my classes and at my internship. The biggest lesson of them all was realizing how important it was to look beyond the split-second judgement our minds make based on outward appearances and preconceived notions.
PREOCCUPATION WITH YOUR OWN SUCCESS IS LIMITING
Even with the wonderful and often eye-opening experiences I had with my college dormmates freshman year, I must admit that I didn’t always get it right in the years since. I fell into many common trappings we experience in both our personal and professional lives. As I got older, moved away from the city and back to a small town, my circle of friends got smaller and less diverse.
I continued to find success in my professional career and began to take on management roles, but often I didn’t ask important questions about recruiting processes and hiring practices. I was too busy attempting to plant my own stake in the ground rather than care how my actions impacted others – particularly the women around me. If there was going to be one woman in the room, I was fighting to secure that spot for myself.
USING YOUR POWER FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS CREATES CHANGE
It is embarrassing to admit to myself how far I strayed from those very important lessons I had the good fortune of learning at such a young age. It also doesn’t feel great to share my shortcomings so publicly now – especially since for the last seven years, I have been actively involved in numerous women employee resource groups and professional associations. The candid truth is that when you are preoccupied with your own success, you are often led to believe that it’s you or someone else – something that just isn’t the case.
I’ve done an extraordinary amount of work in the past three years to become the best version of myself, to rediscover who I was as an ever-curious, and accepting frizzy-haired girl.
Now I realize that as my sphere of influence grows, this is my chance – my responsibility – to increase the opportunities available for other women. Making the circle bigger and celebrating individual contributions and unique points of view of other women does not diminish my own value. Quite the opposite. When we support each other, grow together, and continue to reach out and lift others up, we create a unique and powerful experience. This experience promotes inclusivity over exclusivity, belonging over assimilation, and ultimately begins to humanize our workplaces.
MICROAFFIRMATIONS: A POWERFUL TOOL TO INFLUENCE AND BREAK THE BIAS
Breaking bias for women at work will never happen if we rely on corporate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs alone or only talk about the challenges many of us continue to face each March during Women’s History Month and on International Women’s Day. It will only happen one person at a time, making small, consistent changes. That’s why today I choose to break the bias by actively working to influence others’ beliefs and actions.
You do not need a fancy title or corporate initiative to lead from the middle.
We’ve all become familiar with the term microaggressions and hopefully to recognize them and intervene when appropriate. Intervention is important but prevention is paramount if we are to make real progress. Melinda Briana Epler in her book How to Be an Ally: Actions You Can Take for a Stronger, Happier Workplace, shares that “[m]icroaffirmations are little ways that you can affirm someone’s identity; recognize and validate their experience and expertise; build confidence; develop trust; foster belonging, and support someone in their career. Microaffirmations can help mitigate and disrupt the harmful effects of historical oppression, systemic inequity, cultural marginalization, and personal biases.”
TAKING CHARGE AND EFFECTING CHANGE
You can influence change. Here are a few things you can do to challenge and ultimately break bias in your workplace:
- Stay curious – take a real interest in getting to know those you work with
- Take notice – acknowledge the expertise and skills of your colleagues
- Amplify voices – use your platform to share someone else’s idea and give them credit
- Celebrate often – recognize achievements and the special life moments in the lives of your teammates
- Offer support – showcase opportunities for continued growth by sharing positive and constructive feedback
Today, there is an entire Curly Girl movement – mainstream and readily available hair products, hair tutorial videos and whole salons dedicated to girls and women with curly hair. I choose to believe that this movement grew out of experiences similar to mine – girls helping girls by sharing the lessons they learned from the women in their families or simply by their own trial and error. The girl power, curly girl power, when we “stick together” is undeniable. Today I actively choose to bridge the gap that still exists for too many women by recapturing the curiosity and wide-eyed wonder I had at 18… I just do it with healthy, bouncing, frizz-free curly hair.
Visit internationalwomensday.com to learn more about International Women’s Day and the 2022 #BreakTheBias campaign.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As a Consulting Director with Rizing Consumer Industries, Kimberly is the data practice lead working with companies as they embark on their own data journeys. Kimberly provides executive education and mentoring to new data leaders by imparting the lessons she learned along the way and she does it with the singular purpose of unlocking data’s value as a strategic asset. In addition to her advisory work with Rizing, Kimberly is actively engaged with the data community. She is highly regarded as a thought leader – publishing articles and speaking at various industry events. Kimberly is a member of the Society of Information Management and ASUG’s Enterprise Information Management Think Tank.
Passionate about increasing the opportunities for women in IT and Retail, Kimberly founded Rizing’s first employee resource group, WIT (Women in Technology) whose vision is to, “accelerate the leadership path for Rizing women so that they can reach their full potential in an inclusive workplace.” She is also an active member in Nextup.