Black Women Shoulder Additional Burdens On Their Path to Success

Black women shoulder additional burdens beyond men on their path to success, especially in accessing venture capital funding, including networking gaps and less access to personal investment due to racial wealth gaps.

Alicia Sheares’ research on Black tech entrepreneurship in Atlanta and Silicon Valley identifies additional barriers faced by Black women in the field due to negative assumptions about their abilities, signals that they do not belong, sexual advances, and distractions relating to their appearance and attractiveness.

These challenges for Black women are distinct from those reported by Black men and by white women. 

For her presentation to the Clayman Institute, Sheares dug into her research on Black women.