Glass Ceiling

The Concept of the Glass Ceiling

Women from birth are looked at as inferior to men. As a society we label babies by the color of their blanket when they are born. Boys are given blue as girls are given pink blankets. This from the start separates the two genders. As boys grow they are given action figures and are taught to play rough games, and girls are given dolls and taught to play nice. These differences continue to cause a gap between the two genders.

As the American society has progressed, there are aspects that have failed to revolutionize. Americans have been unsuccessful in recognizing the equality of women in general. The intelligence of a woman has always been looked down upon by the male gender. Johanne Toussaint, an English professor stated that, "The views of women in which their 'role' is that of keeper of hearth and home while that of a man is to provide for and protect this 'weaker sex' - a view which continues to define different social roles for men and women" (The Glass Ceiling). These differences in the social roles create a barricade in the workplace for women. The concept of the "Glass Ceiling" is a metaphoric term for the barrier that exists for women in the work place. As stated by Webster's dictionary the term glass ceiling is defined as, "the maximum position and salary some claim women are allowed to reach without any chances of further promotion or advancement within an employment scenario" (Websters).

Women have been unable to show their full potential due to the differences between them and the male gender. These differences have made it easy to validate the unequal treatment of women on all levels. These differences came to cause an imbalance in the two genders in the workplace. The term, "Glass Ceiling" was originally used in 1986 by two Wall Street Journal reporters. The two used the expression "to describe the invisible and artificial barriers that impeded women from advancing to senior leadership positions" (Break the Glass Ceiling).

The barrier that exists between women and men limit opportunities and any type of upward development for women. The, Break the Glass Ceiling Foundation, who stands for equal opportunity for women and minorities, have done extensive research on the glass ceiling barrier. They have determined that the glass ceiling can appear in many forms. The first form is the lack of management commitment to establish systems, policies, and practices for achieving workplace diversity and upward mobility. This form means that women are unable to move up in the business due to a lack of upward mobility. Women are able to be promoted past a certain position. Not only is the business form of workplace affected by this barrier, but there also exist the barrier in the government department. Toussaint proves this statement by the fact that "only forty women have served on the highest court of thirty states and only five have presided over their state's court as chief justice. Only 5.4 percent of all federal judges were women at the time of Sandra Day O'Connor's appointment."

Janeen Baxter, a professor from the University of Tasmania and Erik Olin Wright, a professor from the University of Wisconsin- Madison, also demonstrate the truth of this glass ceiling form. "Fewer than 0.5 percent of the 4,012 highest paid managers in top companies in the United States are women, while fewer than five percent of senior management in the Fortune 500 corporations are women and minorities. Although women have held government jobs since 1992 and made up eighty-six percent of the government's clerical workers, they were only a quarter of supervisors and only a tenth of senior executives."

The second form that the glass ceiling exists is the form of pay inequities for work of equal or comparable values (Break the Glass Ceiling). In the PRWeek magazine Salary Survey on March 27, 2000, women on average were paid 72% of the salary paid to men. The salary for women was $59,026 whereas the salary for men was $81,920. These figures meaning that on average men make almost $23,000 per year more than women. The glass ceiling makes it challenging for women to make as much money as men. Due to the idea that women are unequal to men, than women must not deserve to make as much money as males.

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