All opinions expressed are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Edinburgh.
Martha Dudzinski is the Berlin-based founder of the SWANS Initiative, an organisation that supports female university students and young academic professionals from immigrant families, black women and women of colour to achieve the careers that they deserve.
How did you come up with the idea for SWANS?
I myself have never quite felt at home in most white feminist spaces. The perspectives and problems can be so far removed from my personal experiences and realities. And men tend to take up a lot of time and space when it comes to opportunity, even in migrant and black people/people of colour communities (BlPoC). That was very exhausting for me when I started working with migrant and refugee groups here in Germany, especially when I realised how much more the women in these spaces had to offer. But they didn’t practice self-promotion as much, or they simply got intimidated. So the combination of these two experiences is really what led to the idea for SWANS. I wanted to create a space for women who don’t feel understood because of both their migrant as well as their gender-based experiences and obstacles.
So in a nutshell, SWANS helps disadvantaged women of talent access high-quality education to improve their chances of having a fulfilling career, and we do this through workshops, coaching and mentoring.
"We try to teach [women] to acknowledge and appreciate how independent, self-sufficient and responsible they are due to their experiences, and how these are traits and skills they can proudly present to employers when applying for jobs."
Why did you choose the name SWANS?
A swan represents the different pressures women face in our society: we are supposed to be white, thin and elegant. Also, swans are known as dangerous loners who dare to bite you if you come too close. The idea is to turn these societal expectations upside down: we focus on our inner qualities rather than superficial attributes - and we do that in a pack.
What are the typical experiences of the young women you help?
Besides actively sexist, classist and racist experiences and intersectional discrimination? Generally everything that has to do with being underestimated. Employers rarely appreciate the challenges our “swans“ (that’s what we call the women in our community) have overcome to get where they are, and oftentimes their accomplishments are being belittled as token diversity hires. Also, we want to empower our “swans“ to be proud of what they have achieved - many grew up doing government paperwork for their parents, interpreting and working from a young age. We try to teach them to acknowledge and appreciate how independent, self-sufficient and responsible they are due to their experiences, and how these are traits and skills they can proudly present to employers when applying for jobs.
SWANS is aimed at well-qualified women – why is that group important to you?
We decided to offer a platform of career support as well as a network for this very specific group for one simple reason - there wasn’t one before. In Germany, we have mostly white women’s organisations, migrant communities, BlPoC communities, religious institutions and different NGOs and foundations supporting underprivileged kids, BIPoC and other marginalised communities. But we are the first and so far only organisation in the German-speaking world that explicitly supports German-raised female academics from migrant families, black women and women of colour and that tackles inequality in the academic workforce.
SWANS is for young women with an immigrant background. As someone born in Germany and of Polish descent, has your own background informed the motivation to set-up SWANS?
Absolutely. Being of Polish descent gave me a unique position between the dominant white German society and the migrant communities. When I was young, we were all called “foreigners“. Nowadays, I myself experience very little 'othering' to the point where I underestimated what other Polish people and people of Polish descent still go through. But experiencing this privilege is exactly the reason why I feel so passionately about SWANS. While today most people see me as somebody who belongs to the dominant society, I still remember what it’s like to be “the Polish kid“ with all the jokes and prejudice that come along with it; being raised by a single mother who struggled with long-term unemployment, and jumping back and forth between growing up in a wealthy German region and the economic realities migrants in Germany, my family in Poland, as well as people in Poland altogether, are facing.
While you can argue that Poland as a (now) EU member with a predominantly Catholic society is not as culturally and economically far away from Germany as other immigrants’ countries of origin, I still relate to many experiences of post-immigration and switching between cultures and classes - the pros and the cons. While I am very aware of the fact that SWANS would be more credible if the organisation wasn’t headed by a white-passing person like myself, the fact that I profit from white privilege also helped us get into many spaces that I’m afraid would have not been as comfortable working with us if I had been black, Muslim or both.
Who typically takes part in the initiatives you organise?
The women who join our community and participate in our events are all German-raised academics from migrant families and are black/indigenous women of colour (BIWoC). They managed to get through a highly segregated school system and still attend university, oftentimes being the first generation in their families to do so.
They join our community because they learnt that no matter how hard you work and how smart, motivated and dedicated you are, there are structural obstacles that will keep you from fulfilling your potential and get the jobs you have earned and deserve. They join us because they are looking for hands-on knowledge about jobs, applications and scholarships as well as a professional network and community of like-minded people facing similar challenges. Some of them have already been supported by prestigious scholarship programmes, attended elite universities and interned or worked at the world’s most attractive employers. Others have not heard of any such opportunities - or felt like they wouldn’t be welcome in such spaces. Our goal is to also bring these two groups together, so the latter can be inspired by and learn from the former in terms of what opportunities are out there for them and how to grasp them.
Have you experienced discrimination yourself in your professional and personal life?
Of course I have regular experiences of sexism, classism and othering. But these everyday occurrences are rather minor, I wouldn’t call them discrimination in a legal sense - men presenting my ideas as their own, male business partners who talk to the male intern instead of me, stuff like that. What does stand out is being sexually harassed by a superior when I was in my early twenties. Other than that I would say just the regular stuff women have to go through on a daily basis, and just a small piece of the experiences people from other migrant backgrounds put up with in their day to day life.
Most anti-Polish sentiment I experience is from people who don’t realise I am of Polish descent. Colleagues at work, friends of friends, or the like, make jokes about Polish people and then get very awkward upon realising that I am of Polish descent. These experiences I hope teach them: don’t only stop being problematic when members of marginalised communities are around. Stop it altogether - even when you think you are among "your own people". You never know who you might be discriminating against - and maybe even someone not immediately affected will not approve.
"The most important way to make diversity efforts credible is to have diversity all the way up to the leadership level."
A lot of companies and institutions talk about diversity and having a diverse workforce, but was does meaningful diversity look like to you?
The most important way to make diversity efforts credible is to have diversity all the way up to the leadership level. Having a diverse staff with things getting less and less diverse the more power, prestige and money comes with positions is a big red flag. This is where the aspects of inclusion, belonging and equity come into place: do I work at a place that is built to accommodate the needs of white cis* men, but not of women, black, indigenous and people of colour, or LGBT+ people and people with disabilities? Does it feel like meeting your needs is an inconvenience to the people who decided what is considered "normal“? Then that workplace is neither credible nor meaningful, and it can't act surprised when it fails to get people from marginalised communities to stick around.
And finally, what is your long-term vision for SWANS?
For us to become obsolete. We are fighting intersectional discrimination in the academic workforce. Of course I wish our work had never been necessary in the first place. And that one day we will achieve our goal of a merit-based job market - where it really is the most qualified, motivated and dedicated candidate that gets the job. But that is a very long term long-term vision…
All opinions expressed are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Edinburgh.
Photo of Martha by Mina Esfandiari. All other photos courtesy of SWANS Initiative.
You can find out more about the SWANS Initiative on its website.