Marjolein Dennissen

70 The Herculean task of diversity networks The [ethnic minority network] is verymuch to empower and to connect and uh, well network uh, to create a network and coming together and talking about it and just… (…) That is important too, you know... a safe haven, because there is diversity, but that you belong somewhere (…) Because then you have the support of like-minded [people], it is about that. That you feel part of a larger whole and feeling supported by that. That you do not feel like a Don Quichot, fighting against the evil outside world, no there are others that also feel the same as you do and so maybe have the same struggles as you have. (…) I get a lot of support from that... (…) [The women’s network] is more concrete. So a women’s network, we have a more concrete goal. That is just more women at the top. So it looks the same: more cultural diverse colleagues at the top, but it is not one-on-one translatable, because cultural diverse does still have to win a whole terrain of uh, support. Uh, in acceptance. Sonya is one of the few respondents who joined multiple networks and she explicitly distinguishes between the importance of membership of the ethnic minority network on the one hand, and the importance of membership of the women’s network on the other hand. According to Sonya, next to developing a network and making social connections, membership of the ethnic minority network is especially important for the support of “like-minded” people, a safe space (“haven”) that gives people a sense of belongingness. Sonya says that she received much support by sharing her struggles, that she compares to the struggles of “Don Quichot against the evil outside world”. Membership of the women’s network, on the other hand, is important for career purposes: getting more women in higher organizational positions. Although Sonya acknowledges that the same holds true for ethnic minority employees in higher organizational positions, she states that it is not the same issue. As an ethnic minority woman, Sonya negotiates her multiple identities by joining two different networks, but without mentioning possible intersectional dynamics between them. She talks of “struggles” but refers to the struggles of ethnic minority employees as a category, without mentioning the struggles of ethnic minority women specifically. For women issues one joins the women’s network, and for ethnic minority aspects one joins the ethnic minority network. As such, Sonya goes along with the categorization created by diversity networks and complies with the single category structure. Problematizing the single category structure as individual issue The second fragment is from Alice. Alice is also a member of multiple networks: the disability network and the LGBT network in Finance. I have to say that at a certain moment (…) that I thought I go to the [disability network], (…) and we indeed have a gay network… that I thought at a certain moment, do I have to choose now in which group I fall? (…) Let’s say that I enter the Moroccan network, and