Marjolein Dennissen

72 The Herculean task of diversity networks Selma calls attention to the intersection of gender and ethnicity within the women’s network. Instead of joining multiple networks and complying with the single category structure, she points at how ethnicity is relevant for members of the women’s network. As seen with Alice, focusing on one single identity category, networks overlook the differences within that particular category. Within the women’s network the main focus is on the category gender : We have very consciously, have said there is still so much to do about only the piece of gender, let’s focus on that. (…) [W]e [women] still have to go a long way. (…) [P]eople coming from foreign countries, with foreign backgrounds, since they have, do have other problems. (Ruth, women’s network Finance) Ruth is an ethnic majority woman and a member of the women’s network Ladies with ambition . This quote from Ruth illustrates that the women’s network is focusing on gender issues only. Referring to ethnic minorities as “people”, Ruth ignores ethnic minority women within the women’s network. As such, Ruth’s account reflects underlying notions of white privilege, centralizing ethnic majority women in the women’s network. A significant aspect of privilege is that it is unmarked; privilege is so universally normalized that it literally goes without saying for those who are privileged (Ferber, 2012; McIntosh, 2012). The power of whiteness is so embedded in organizations (Puwar, 2004), that consequently, white privilege is difficult to name and denaturalize (Liu & Baker 2016). Because of her privileged ethnic majority identity, Ruth is not able to see beyond the single category of women . In contrast, Selma, with multiple subordinate identities, is able to vocalize the need for an intersectional perspective within the women’s network. Instead of taking the single category structure for granted, Selma challenges the women’s network to pay attention to multiple intersecting identities (ethnic minority women). My analyses of structural intersectionality have provided insight into the strategies of individual network members to negotiate multiple intersecting identities in relation to their membership of diversity networks. Whereas Sonya seemingly complies with the single category structure of diversity networks, Alice and Selma problematize the network’s focus on single identity categories. While Alice feels her distress is an individual struggle, Selma makes her intersectional identity struggle a political endeavor and challenges the structure of the network to take multiple intersecting identities into account. My analyses showed how these identity negotiations are intertwined with positions of privilege and disadvantage. Within diversity networks, privileged categories such as maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality, able-bodiedness are silenced and assumed as the self-evident norm. Thus, by ignoring intragroup differences, the single category structure of diversity networks reinforces privilege. Network members with single subordinated identities and intersecting privileged identities are normalized, whereas members with multiple subordinate identities are intersectionally marginalized.