White Woman Who “Knows” She Has To Be Better Than A Man To Succeed, Not So Sure A Black Woman Has To Be Better Than Her To Succeed

“I do think the average woman has to be ten times better than the average man to succeed,” Camilla Whelan said, “no doubt about that”.

“But I’m not so sure I agree the average African-American woman has to be better than the average white woman to succeed?”

The ‘stay-at-home’ mother of two who’d given her African American cleaner a copy of Cheryl Sandberg’s Lean In as an early Christmas gift, squirmed as she said this, acutely aware that it might seem like a double standard.

“It’s a tough one, isn’t it,’ the Boston woman suggested, as she struggled for a formula that would allow her to equate a white middle class woman’s station in life with that of a black woman from an underprivileged neighbourhood.

In the end, she decided she would ‘definitely think some more about it…later?’