Is there institutionalised racism within New Zealand's public and private sectors? Does a bamboo ceiling exist? If it does, a group of Asian leaders are working to tear it down.
Mai Chen, chair of the Superdiversity Leadership Training programme Photo: RNZ / Lynda Chanwai-Earle
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Lynda Chanwai-Earle visits Mai Chen's recent Superdiversity Leadership Training programme in Wellington to learn more.
What do fish have to do with breaking the bamboo ceiling?
According to Mervin Singham, it’s all about being adaptable, resilient and unafraid of change.
The Deputy Chief Executive, Strategy and Governance at the Department of Internal Affairs was speaking at the Superdiversity Leadership Training programme when he talked about the euryhaline fish species found in his home country of Malaysia.
These humble, hardy fish can survive in fresh, salty and polluted waters and have inspired Mervin since childhood. Their example gave him courage when making the leap to a new life in New Zealand.
Mervin arrived in Christchurch on a cold day 31 years ago. He was here to study law at the University of Canterbury, one of only a handful of Asians there at the time. After graduation, he would eventually rise to become director of the inaugural Office of Ethnic Affairs.* But for Mervin and many others, before success came the “bamboo ceiling.”
Like the "glass ceiling" first coined by feminists in reference to barriers in the careers of high-achieving women, the bamboo ceiling is the barrier facing people of colour in terms of career advancement and discrimination based on visible difference.
Held recently in Wellington, the Superdiversity Leadership Training programme was created by lawyer Mai Chen to support successful leaders from ethnic communities working within the public and private sectors. The aim is to grow good leaders into great ones and then leverage off their difference.
Mai initiated the Superdiversity Stocktake in 2015 to examine the meaning of ‘diversity’ in 21st century New Zealand. She also wanted to evaluate the impact of our country’s changing demographics; “so that it’s not constrained to gender or ethnicity, and takes into account the multifaceted nature of every person’s identity.”
“We need to unpack the word 'diversity' to understand what it means for law, policy and business in the 21st century.”
Mai’s law company, Chen Palmer, also runs The Superdiversity Centre for Law, Policy and Business. This multidisciplinary centre analyses the law, policy and business implications of diversity to “enable Government, business and NGOs to maximise the benefits of the ‘diversity dividend’ arising from New Zealand’s transition to a super diverse society.”
The two-day leadership programme grew out of this vision. Mervin and other ethnic leaders conduct sessions to help participants better understand how to work with media and government and ultimately, to break through the bamboo ceiling.
Mervin says the problem is conscious and unconscious bias in the workforce. “Once we understand the problem, then we can work to tackle it.”
“So for example people saying; ‘I’ve been trying to employ these diverse people into my work force but I’m not successful’ – and they really believe they’ve done their best but they haven’t found competent candidates – it may be that it’s because they’re unaware that there’s bias built into their process. So if they were aware of that bias then they become more aware of what to do about it.”
“People look at unconscious bias and they talk about it as if its single equality lines” says Mai. “It’s unconscious bias against women but in general they mean ‘white women’ and then they say ‘its unconscious bias against Maori’ but in general they mean ‘Maori men’.”
Statistics NZ, pay inequity according to gender and ethnicity Photo: Statistics New Zealand
“Actually gender and ethnicity compound the issues of unconscious bias; sometimes the adverse stereotypes they have of you is much worse – because you’ve got the whole intersection between gender and ethnicity. Looking at [the data], it shows a third to forty-percent of us have more than one characteristic that might be the subject of discrimination.”
Participant Berlinda Chin migrated to New Zealand from Malaysia in the early 2000s. Like Mervin she also served as Director of the Office of Ethnic Communities and although she hasn’t experienced the bamboo ceiling she knows young leaders who have and is deeply concerned about the potential for damage to their career trajectories.
“Statistics show we’ve got really highly qualified Somalian graduates but a lot of them struggle to get meaningful employment and you’ve got to ask why? One has to reflect whether there are ceilings put upon for members of our communities who are visibly different.”
Mai Chen believes this question is critical and will also affect how local and central government tailor their approach to policy-making and citizen engagement. “They turned you down because you’re a black woman – if you look at the pay stats it goes white men, then white women, then coloured men and then coloured women. We can’t say these are minority issues – a quarter of the population of Auckland are coloured women and who is talking to them about their issues?”
Berlinda says it’s about action; “I want to see higher contributions from our ethnic leaders to take part in being visible, to support what [Mai] is working on – when the call is out to champion diversity in New Zealand, how many of us will take up the call?”
Mai’s follow-up publication The Diversity Matrix builds on this and will be published by the Superdiversity Centre for Law, Policy and Business in February 2017.
*(Currently The Office of Ethnic Communities).
