In general, the literature shows that middle class African-American and white women in the professions share similar concerns and experiences as a consequence of sexism. Contact with six of these women has been ongoing over the course of the previous decade, which has enabled a fuller understanding of the content of the women's lives and experiences in both the professional and personal domains. During each of the formal interviews, I had asked each woman what she considered the most pressing issues facing her as a woman in academe in general, and as an African-American woman in academe in particular. In the present paper I focus on the responses to the latter concern among this set of midwestern women for whom I have longitudinal data.
All names used are pseudonyms.
The cultural values underlying human interaction in the two worlds are often in conflict.