Glass Ceiling Research Paper

In an article written by Shanna B. Van Ness for the Huffington Post, she writes about her own personal experience with the glass ceiling. Shanna writes that she had been on her job for five years, and when she asked for a promotion and salary increase, she was denied, and the explanation she got was “why should I pay her extra for something she already does.” With former First Lady, Congresswoman, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton running for the office of President of the United States, the time has come again for the age old question, does the glass ceiling still exist? Shanna writes that after five years, she asked herself if it was possible she was the reason why she did not get promoted. She decided to reinvent herself. She went to
workshops, watched YouTube videos, and she added other skills to her resume.
The phrase “glass ceiling” refers to an invisible barrier that prevents someone from achieving further success. It is most often used in the context of someone's age, gender, or ethnicity keeping them from advancing to a certain point in a business or when he or she cannot or will not be promoted to a higher level of position or power.
Glass ceilings are most often observed in the workplace and are usually a barrier to achieving power and success equal to that of a more dominant population. The concept of glass ceiling was originally introduced outside of print media at the National Press Club in July 1979 at a Conference of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press by Katherine Lawrence of Hewlett Packard. This was part of an ongoing discussion of a clash between written policies of promotion versus action opportunities for women at HP. The term was coined by Lawrence and HP manager Maryanne Schreiber. The term was later used in March 1984 by Gay Bryant. She was the former editor of Working Woman magazine and was changing jobs to be the editor of Family Circle. In an Ad week article by Nora Frenkel, Bryant was reported as saying, "Women have reached a certain point, and I call it the glass ceiling. They're in the top of middle management and they're stopping and getting stuck. There is not enough room for all those women at the top. Some are going into
business for themselves. Others are going out and raising families." In the 1960’s, the introduction of the contraceptive pill gave women more control over when or if they have children. In the 1970’s, women who entered the workforce experienced improved working conditions as a result of the anti-discrimination legislations, such as the Equal Pay Act of 1970 and the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975. However, despite these changes, women typically earn less than their male counterparts. In 2011 for example, the difference between earnings for each gender was 9.6%. This was the widest pay gap for the upper income bracket such as executive management positions, and narrowest for the lower income bracket. Many people have various perspective about the glass ceiling effect, some say yes, there is still a glass ceiling for women. They say males still dominate the top positions, for example, legal positions. The percentage of women that hold the position of Lord of Appeal is 8.33%, High Court Judges is 10.09%, and the percentage of deputy judges is 27%. People that argue that there is no glass ceiling say women's liberation, feminism and civil rights legislation already provide for women's equality, women's job choices keep them off of the executive track, women do not have the right educational preparation for senior executive jobs for example, an M.B.A that is a Master’s in Business Administration, and women who do make job choices that put them on the executive track and do have the right educational preparation have not been in the corporation long enough to build up experience.
Female executives who are Feminist say the enforcement of the Anti-Discrimination Laws are lax. Men in corporate management tend not to perceive discrimination as a real problem, thereby making it virtually impossible to implement effective remedies. According to an exhaustive study by John P. Fernandez, white men consistently ranked problems encountered by women executives as insignificant compared to how women ranked them. So without constant pressure from the outside and strong legal remedies, the very real problems of race and sex discrimination in the executive suite may never be adequately addressed. There are various problems with the glass ceiling effect, some of them are, women place too much weight on the existence of a glass ceiling, women make choices and then complain about them, and women are constantly mean to each other. Some people question the whole existence of the glass ceiling effect, they ask does prejudice still exist?
Should affirmative action continue to be standard by which women rely on for a job? Or did it ever occur to anyone that maybe these women accept these standards because of American society? In an article about Republican Presidential Candidate hopeful Carly Fiorina, she said “the glass ceiling no longer exists.” This is my reason for choosing this topic. The article made me reflect on the progress that has been made in terms of women in power, and whether or not there is still need for the use of the term “glass ceiling”.
I believe that there will always be a ceiling for women to break through. There is no denying that there has been significant achievement by women in terms of breaking through this ceiling. But we cannot also deny the fact that women will always have to prove their worth before they are given a position of power. Unlike women, there is not an invisible standard that must be reached for men. There is room for mediocre men in the world, but there is no room for mediocre women. In order for women to continue to conquer the world, we must believe that equal opportunities do not exist. The minute we begin to believe that the glass ceiling has been shattered, we are unconsciously saying we have no place on the big boys table. A December 2011 report by the Harvard Independent states that since 1980 not only are more women than men enrolled in higher education, but also more women graduate with honors. Yet, in Fortune 500 companies women account for just 7.5 percent of top earners, and only 3.6 percent of those companies' CEOs are women. A 1997 study by two women economists from Harvard and Princeton universities of major orchestra auditions that showed that when the auditions were blind, women were as likely as men to be hired as musicians who would be expected to go on the road and to make considerable time commitments to the job. But when interviewed in person, men were hired more often than women. Today, women comprise nearly half of the U.S. labor force. While 70 percent of families in 1960 had a stay-at-home parent, now 70 percent of families have either both parents working or a single parent who works. In two-thirds of all households, women are either the main breadwinner or the co-breadwinners, according to the Center for American Progress. In 40 percent of all households, women are the only wage earners. Yet on average, women in the workplace earn 20 percent less than men doing comparable jobs.