Glass ceiling


A glass ceiling is a metaphor usually applied to women, used to represent an invisible barrier that prevents a given demographic from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy. The metaphor was first used by feminists in reference to barriers in the careers of high-achieving women. It was coined by Marilyn Loden during a speech in 1978.
In the United States, the concept is sometimes extended to refer to racial inequality. Racialised women in white-majority countries often find the most difficulty in "breaking the glass ceiling" because they lie at the intersection of two historically marginalized groups: women and people of color. East Asian and East Asian American news outlets have coined the term "bamboo ceiling" to refer to the obstacles that all East Asian Americans face in advancing their careers. Similarly, a multitude of barriers that refugees and asylum seekers face in their search for meaningful employment is referred to as the "canvas ceiling".
Within the same concepts of the other terms surrounding the workplace, there are similar terms for restrictions and barriers concerning women and their roles within organizations and how they coincide with their maternal responsibilities. These "Invisible Barriers" function as metaphors to describe the extra circumstances that women go through, usually when they try to advance within areas of their careers and often while they try to advance within their lives outside their work spaces.
"A glass ceiling" represents a blockade that prohibits women from advancing toward the top of a hierarchical corporation. These women are prevented from getting promoted, especially to the executive rankings within their corporation. In the last twenty years, the women who have become more involved and pertinent in industries and organizations have rarely been in the executive ranks.

Definition

The United States Federal Glass Ceiling Commission defined the glass ceiling as "the unseen, yet unbreachable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements."
David Cotter et al. defined four distinctive characteristics that must be met to conclude that a glass ceiling exists. A glass ceiling inequality represents:
  1. "A gender or racial difference that is not explained by other job-relevant characteristics of the employee."
  2. "A gender or racial difference that is greater at higher levels of an outcome than at lower levels of an outcome."
  3. "A gender or racial inequality in the chances of advancement into higher levels, not merely the proportions of each gender or race currently at those higher levels."
  4. "A gender or racial inequality that increases over the course of a career."
Cotter and colleagues found that glass ceilings are correlated strongly with gender, with both white and minority women facing a glass ceiling in the course of their careers. In contrast, the researchers did not find evidence of a glass ceiling for African-American men.
The glass ceiling metaphor has often been used to describe invisible barriers through which women can see elite positions but cannot reach them. These barriers prevent large numbers of women and ethnic minorities from obtaining and securing the most powerful, prestigious and highest-grossing jobs in the workforce. Moreover, this effect prevents women from filling high-ranking positions and puts them at a disadvantage as potential candidates for advancement.

History

In 1839, French feminist and author George Sand used a similar phrase, une voûte de cristal impénétrable, in a passage of Gabriel, a never-performed play: "I was a woman; for suddenly my wings collapsed, ether closed in around my head like an impenetrable crystal vault, and I fell...." . The statement, a description of the heroine's dream of soaring with wings, has been interpreted as a feminine Icarus tale of a woman who attempts to ascend above her accepted role.
Marilyn Loden invented the phrase glass ceiling during a 1978 speech.
According to the April 3, 2015, The Wall Street Journal the term glass ceiling was notably used in 1979 by Maryanne Schriber and Katherine Lawrence at Hewlett-Packard. Lawrence outlined the concept at the National Press Club at the national meeting of the Women's Institute for the Freedom of the Press in Washington DC. The ceiling was defined as discriminatory promotion patterns where the written promotional policy is non-discriminatory, but in practice denies promotion to qualified females.
The term was later used in March 1984 by Gay Bryant, who is credited with popularizing the glass ceiling concept. She was the former editor of Working Woman magazine and was changing jobs to be the editor of Family Circle. In an Adweek article written by Nora Frenkel, Bryant was reported as saying, "Women have reached a certain point—I call it the glass ceiling. They're at the top of middle management and they're stopping and getting stuck. There isn't enough room for all those women at the top. Some are going into business for themselves. Others are going out and raising families." Also in 1984, Bryant used the term in a chapter of the book The Working Woman Report: Succeeding in Business in the 1980s. In the same book, Basia Hellwig used the term in another chapter.
In a widely cited article in the Wall Street Journal in March 1986 the term was used in the article's title: "The Glass Ceiling: Why Women Can't Seem to Break The Invisible Barrier That Blocks Them From the Top Jobs". The article was written by Carol Hymowitz and Timothy D. Schellhardt. Hymowitz and Schellhardt introduced glass ceiling was "not something that could be found in any corporate manual or even discussed at a business meeting; it was originally introduced as an invisible, covert, and unspoken phenomenon that existed to keep executive level leadership positions in the hands of Caucasian males."
As the term "glass ceiling" became more common, the public responded with differing ideas and opinions. Some argued that the concept is a myth because women choose to stay home and showed less dedication to advance into executive positions. As a result of continuing public debate, the US Labor Department's chief, Lynn Morley Martin, reported the results of a research project called "The Glass Ceiling Initiative", formed to investigate the low numbers of women and minorities in executive positions. This report defined the new term as "those artificial barriers based on attitudinal or organizational bias that prevent qualified individuals from advancing upward in their organization into management-level positions."
In 1991, as a part of Title II of the Civil Right Act of 1991, The United States Congress created the Glass Ceiling Commission. This 21 member Presidential Commission was chaired by Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, and was created to study the "barriers to the advancement of minorities and women within corporate hierarchies to issue a report on its findings and conclusions, and to make recommendations on ways to dis- mantle the glass ceiling." The commission conducted extensive research including, surveys, public hearings and interviews, and released their findings in a report in 1995. The report, "Good for Business", offered "tangible guidelines and solutions on how these barriers can be overcome and eliminated". The goal of the commission was to provide recommendations on how to "shatter" the glass ceiling, specifically in the world of business. The report issued 12 recommendations on how to improve the workplace by increasing diversity in organizations and reducing discrimination through policy.
The number of women CEOs in the Fortune Lists has increased between 1998 and 2020, despite women's labor force participation rate decreasing globally from 52.4% to 49.6% between 1995 and 2015. Only 19.2% of S&P 500 Board Seats were held by women in 2014, 80.2% of whom were considered white.

Glass Ceiling Index

In 2017, The Economist updated their Glass Ceiling Index, combining data on higher education, labour-force participation, pay, child-care costs, maternity and paternity rights, business-school applications, and representation in senior jobs. The countries where inequality was the lowest were Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Poland.

Gender stereotypes

In a 1993 report released through the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, researchers noted that although women have the same educational opportunities as their male counterparts, the Glass Ceiling persist due to systematic barriers, low representation, mobility, and stereotypes. The perpetuation of sexist stereotypes is one widely recognized reason as to why female employees are systematically inhibited from receiving advantageous opportunities in their chosen fields. A majority of Americans perceive women to be more emotional and men to be more aggressive. Gender stereotypes influence how leaders are chosen by employers and how workers of different sex are treated. Another stereotype towards women in workplaces is known as the "gender status belief" which claims that men are more competent and intelligent than women, which would explain why they have higher positions in the career hierarchy. Ultimately, this factor leads to perception of gender-based jobs in the labor market, so men are expected to have more work-related qualifications and hired for top positions. Perceived feminine stereotypes contribute to the glass ceiling faced by women in the workforce.
Gender stereotyping is thinking that men are better than women in management and leadership roles; it is the concept of alluding that women are inferior and better suited in their biological roles of mother and spouse. The nature of this stereotype is toxic and hindering to women's success and their rights in every aspect but it is even more damaging in the workplace in a patriarchal society. It represents an invisible but strong barrier that stands in the way of women. Men are put at the utmost positions for they are primally viewed as better leaders whereas women are stuck in low or medium level positions. These barriers to women's progression in management roles and a of significant issue. For example, the few women that have worked hard and relentlessly to break those barriers and have earned their deserving place in a leadership role are either viewed as "competent or warm" but never both. This is because the idea of a successful woman is stereotyped within the idea that she must be a ruthless, competitive, cold person whereas a woman of a warm and caring nature will be perceived as not having the right skill set for leadership and progression because "she does not have what it takes".