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Negotiating Salary as a Professional Minority Woman
Finding the courage to push back and further professionalize oneself is a journey in itself
I’d like to preface that I became the first professional athlete in my family at the age of 17. I remember bringing home my first check as a teaching professional in my chosen sport and my mom ripped the check out of my hands.
“What? This is almost as much as I make!” She was shocked. I was dumbfounded, and felt ashamed of myself.
I didn’t want to embarrass my own mother, if even it was in our living room. Clearly, she knew more than me, had lived and experienced more than me. She had gone through college, become an elementary school teacher in her twenties, gotten married, and had four children. She was one of the few women I looked at and had kept her marriage and home together while working 30–40 hours per week, almost all year round, in a professional position. I admired this quality in her, if even I could not fully understand it.
I held my first professional engagement as a professional athlete at 17 years old as well. From there, I commanded more per hour than what I make today as a woman who holds a master’s degree and is provisionally licensed to practice in the state.
