Gender, Race and Diversity: Professional Trajectories of Brazilian Black Businesswomen

In this paper I propose a reflection on the intersection between gender, race and diversity in the so-called corporate world (understood as the one composed of transnational corporations and the largest private national companies) through the career trajectories of Brazilian black businesswomen. I focused on two generations of Brazilian black businesswomen. Initially I consider a first generation of Brazilian black businesswomen. This term is used to refer to middle-aged black professionals, with an average age of 50, who had initiated their career trajectories at the end of the 1970s, in a historical context in which companies acting in Brazil were not concerned about diversity management. Then, following that, I consider a second generation of Brazilian black businesswomen, referring to the group composed of young black women who arrived in the labour market in the early 21st century, at a time in which gender and racial issues had become a cause of fierce political dispute in Brazil. As a result, companies started to “recycle” discourses on gender and on race relating them to diversity management. Actually, because of their age and recent entrance into the business world, the representatives of this second generation are not in managerial positions yet, but are taking part in trainee programs as potential managers. Consequently, when talking about them I am referring more precisely to a second generation of Brazilian black businesswomen with developing careers. This scenario leads to the following research questions: a) What changes happened in the career trajectories of Brazilian black businesswomen from the end of the 1970s to the beginning of the 21st century? b) How do these changes reflect the socioeconomic transformations, that occured in Brazilian society during that period? c) What consequences do these transformations have on Brazilian black businesswomen’s racial and gender identities? I try to shed light on these questions from biographical and ethnographical research carried out between 2006 and 2011 in São Paulo, Brazil’s most important business city.