Black Women and Irish Women
“Irish are the Blacks of Europe, and Dubliners are the Blacks of Ireland”…goes an opening line from The Commitments, a movie about a rag-tag group of Irish rockers bent on playing Wilson Pickett music in Dublin.
As Xerox CEO Ann Mulcahy, an Irish woman, prepares to pass the baton to Ursula Burns, an African American woman, I’ve been reflecting on the things these two women of different cultures have in common. The two have worked side by side for years, guiding Xerox through some of its darkest hours.
Betsy Morris of Fortune magazine reported: “ they have developed the kind of parnership that can only emerge from a trial by fire. They read each other’s minds, finish each other’s sentences, debate R& D spending, and then consult each other about the wisdom of buying one of their kids a cellphone. They can resolve disagreements no matter how heated – and they can get pretty heated.”
What makes this relationship work culturally is that both women are straight up, no chaser, when it comes to telling it like it is. Andrew Davison described Anne Mulcahy for a piece in the New York Times in ’08 saying, “Her technique was to be brutally honest with staff, and appeal to their sense of loyalty. “
Irish Catholic women and African American women have historically represented the highest number of bread-winners who are single heads of households in the U.S. It was Irish and Black women working in the mills in New England, and Irish women like Leonora O’Reilly, a key figure in the women’s labor movement, who fought for women’s labor rights. Both groups served as domestics and maids, and both have a tradition of mothers who “raised their daughters, and loved their sons”. In Ireland and in West Africa women are in charge of cottage industries. They are also culturally among the most gregarious, outgoing, outspoken, and relationship driven women in the U.S.
I’m not saying that Irish women faced the same assault on their bodies or on their families that Black women endured during slavery, but I am saying that as white women go, Irish women are the most similar in straightforward communication, artful use of language and humor, and self-reliance.
As part of the research for our book, “Corporate Triblism” I asked women of different cultures what message they received most from their mothers. Middle class white women reported most often: “be caring, be nice, don’t be selfish, don’t hurt other people’s feelings”, while Black women reported: “Be strong, be self reliant”. Of the sub groups of white women, Irish women were more likely than others to feel they had to do things themselves, without relying on a man. One of my Irish friends used to say, “If you want your husband to do something, think of 5 other ways to get it done, and pick one of them.”
Anne Mulcahy reported she would never feel guilty for being a working mother, but would have felt guilty if she didn’t work. While many white women executives have reported to me that they worry that they might have offended someone with what they have said. In contrast, Black and Irish women often say they stay awake at night thinking about what they should have said that they didn’t.
According to Catalyst, an organization that follows women in business, women make up 15% of boards and 16% of corporate officers. Only 6% of top earners are women, and 3% of board members are women of color. I wonder how many of the white women are Irish and how many of the women of color are African American.
If you have a story of an African American/Irish working relationship, please share it.
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