The Black Gender Gap

"I know what every colored woman in this country is doing... Dying. Just like me. But the difference is they dying like a stump. Me, I'm going down like one of those redwoods." America was in a very different place in 1973, when novelist Toni Morrison put those words in the mouth of the doomed yet defiant Sula, whose triumph lay solely in the fact that she could meet death on her own terms. Who then could have imagined that an African-American female would one day stand atop the nation's foreign-policy pyramid? Who could have predicted that black women would, educationally, so outstrip black men? Who could have dreamed the day would come when black women would lay claim to "white men's" jobs--the phrase used by banking executive Malia Fort's former boss as he reminded her of the time when "the only thing a black woman could have done in a bank is clean up"? Today a black woman can be anything from an astronaut to a talk-show host, run anything from a corporation to an Ivy League university. Once consigned to mostly menial work, black women (24 percent of them, compared with 17 percent of black men) have ascended to the professional-managerial class.

This is not to say that black women have climbed the storied crystal stair. They remain "in the proving stage," observes Alabama Power executive Alice Gordon. Nearly 14 percent of working black women remain below the poverty level. And women don't yet out-earn black men. But the growing educational-achievement gap portends a monumental shifting of the sands. College-educated black women already earn more than the median for all black working men--or, for that matter, for all women. And as women in general move up the corporate pyramid, black women, increasingly, are part of the parade. In 1995 women held less than 9 percent of corporate-officer positions in Fortune 500 companies, according to Catalyst, a New York-based organization that promotes the interests of women in business. Last year they held close to 16 percent, a significant step up. Of those 2,140 women, 163 were black--a minuscule proportion, but one that is certain to grow.

These days, few black women are willing to settle for Sula's life. There is a search not only for recognition but for "models of happiness," in the words of Veronica Chambers, author of a new book called "Having It All." But that quest brings with it a host of questions--some whispered, some loudly (even anxiously) debated. Is this new black woman finally crashing through the double ceiling of race and gender? Or is she leaping into treacherous waters that will leave her stranded, unfulfilled, childless and alone? Can she thrive if her brother does not, if the black man succumbs, as hundreds of thousands already have, to the hopelessness of prison and the streets? Can she--dare she--thrive without the black man, finding happiness across the racial aisle? Or will she, out of compassion, loneliness or racial loyalty "settle" for men who--educationally, economically, professionally--are several steps beneath her?

Such questions are now being debated because black men and women are, increasingly, following different paths. As choreographer Fatima Robinson put it: "I love brothers... But there is such a gap that I think I may not end up with a black man." In 1970 the numbers of black males and females in college (though much smaller than they are now) were essentially equivalent. There were only 6 percent more black women than black men enrolled. But in the aftermath of the women's liberation movement, females of all colors moved into the academy and the professions. In 1970 America's college population was predominantly male. Today it is 56 percent female.

Twenty-five percent of young black males go to college; 35 percent of women do. Only 13.5 percent of young black females are high-school dropouts; more than 17 percent of young black men are. The notion that college was a place to find a man has slowly given way to the conviction that decent, educated black men are rarer, to borrow Shakespeare's words, than pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes.

Daven Jackson, a 25-year-old veterinary student at Alabama's predominantly black Tuskegee University, thinks she understands why. In her high school in Thomasville, Ga., recalls Jackson, "most black males were encouraged to be athletes," not scholars. None made it big as jocks; instead, "over half of the males who graduated with me are in jail." Tametria Brown, a student at Meharry Medical College, remembers being singled out for leadership roles in high school. That rarely happened with the boys. Not just teachers but the entire educational support system now favors girls over boys, argues Monette Evans, a Tuskegee vice president. There is also the powerful drive of the women themselves. "Oftentimes women go into higher education and beyond because they can't depend on anyone else to support them or their children," Evans points out. And whereas boys typically lack focus, girls show up with a sense of purpose. "Females had no excuses about anything," says Kevin Cook, an administrator at Arizona State University. They arrive with an attitude that quietly announces, "We're here. It's tough. We're black. We're alone."