Women of colour: the double whammy

However, despite their high degree of education, ethnic minority women in the workforce remain severely under-represented in management positions, and over-represented in junior, often unskilled jobs. They are more likely to do shift work, more likely to be employed in temporary or casual work and to be found in poor working conditions. The TUC are pushing for all employers to be subject to the new race relations act and to monitor recruitment and promotion in their organisations for racism.

Despite the statistics, there are many black and Asian women who have climbed the career ladder. Producer Praveen Shah, for instance, has a successful career in television documentaries. But even she feels that she’s had to ‘slog her guts out’ to get to where she is today. ‘The media still works as a club – it’s infested with the Oxbridge crowd, most of them middle-aged, white men. I don’t have the right accent and I don’t have the education they do. But I can work just as hard as any one,’ she says.

Shah is doing well, but her story shows both sides of the coin. ‘I have worked for a number of very high profile corporations, where the majority of black people in the company still work as cleaners, cooks or in the post-room. For me it’s important that once you get your foot in the door you guide and help others along with you,’ she says.

Shah admits that the McPherson Report, triggered by the racist killing of Stephen Lawrence, has been very important in changing attitudes of the British public to race. ‘But at the end of the day, McPherson was a white guy telling the nation that Britain suffers from institutional racism. Do you think there was a black person in the country who didn’t know that already?’ she asks.

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