Gender and Race

To what extent does gender, sexual orientation, race, and/or ethnicity influence the opportunities you have and the obstacles you face? How conscious are you of your gender, sexual orientation, race and/or ethnicity, and their possible influences on your life? (Note: You can answer one or more of the categories. For example, you can just talk about gender or you can talk about gender and race.) I would like to use GENDER and RACE.  Being an African American Female I am very conscious of both my gender and my race. Being African American I was aware of the same opportunities for employment and education were not available to me because of my skin color and being a woman made it even more difficult.  As such I’ve always been aware I needed to work harder to prove myself and while I may have the same qualifications and sometimes more, either my gender or my race held me back and sometimes both. I’ve been aware that I could not be my authentic self and must appear as non-threatening as to not come across as angry, or what most call “Angry Black Woman”  while for white women it called “passionate.  When writing please find better wording to use than I have written.