The Glass Ceiling
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In order for organizations to function members within the organization, the organization needs to work together to achieve specific goals and solve problems. Organizations will usually work in teams and each team has leaders that get the other team members on the ball to do perform different tasks. Organizations are structured in a hierarchy way. There is the top level management with the CEOs and presidents and other head people. Then there is the middle-level management that includes department heads and managers. Finally there are the employees of the organization working hard to hopefully move up in the corporation to these higher levels. When employees move up the corporate ladder there are certain rewards they get like a higher salary and maybe more benefits such as more flextime. From the very beginning the world has been dominated by men and even more so in the workplace. Men were always the leaders and heads of everything all the way down to the family. The woman was the nurturer and she was only there to provide the man with a family and to care for the family. Her place was never in the workplace. That was strictly for men. It wasnt until World War I where women started to enter the workforce in larger numbers and this was primarily because all the men were being sent over to fight in the war and their wives took their spots on the factory floors so that corporations could still function. There is the ever famous Rosie the Riveter poster during World War II that had the famous motto for women “We can do it.” This got women out of the house and onto the factory floors where their husbands had been working until the war broke out. Of course once the war was over and men came back the women were in a since forced back into the house. But ever since then women began to enter the workforce more and more ever year. Women were starting to realize that they can do the work just as good as men could or even better. Today women account for 45% of the paid labor force (Williams, 6). That number will continue to grow over the next couple of years until eventually women equal or even go above men in the labor force. Although women are playing a big part in the labor market today, they are still unable to advance high up the corporate ladder like men can. There are a very few exceptions to this, but the majority of women in organizations can only usually get to a certain position within the organization and that is it. These women fall victims of what is known as the “glass ceiling.”
The term the “glass ceiling” was originally coined in a 1986 publication of the Wall Street Journal report on corporate women (Lockwood, 1). It is a concept or term that is used to refer to the barriers faced by minorities, but primarily women, who attempt to attain senior level positions in corporations, the government, education, and other organizations. These women are in a sense blocked from senior level positions just because of the fact that they are women and not men. This is how the term, the “glass ceiling” came about. Although women have made huge steps in the corporate world and have played key roles in organizations success, the corporate world is still male dominant. This has to do largely in the fact that almost all the men in corporations hold the higher level positions. There are very few corporations when one thinks about how many corporations there are in the world that actually have a woman running it or holding a senior level position in that corporation. An important study was done by Rosabeth Moss Kanter in her book, Men and Women of the Corporation. In it she documents organizational inequality and argues that the barriers women face in predominantly male occupations can be attributed to their numerical minority in organizations. Although they may have similar qualifications the organizational structure nevertheless promotes gender differentiation through the mechanism of tokenism (Williams, 7). What she simply means by this is that “tokens” stand out. The women are the tokens in the organization and receive a lot of attention. They are then therefore subject to stereotyping, role entrapment, and various other forms of marginalization (Williams, 7). The glass ceiling is not a typical type of discrimination in an organization but it is more along the lines of gender inequality and gender stereotype. Gender inequality and gender stereotype can be seen in many ways such as pay, advances, hiring practices, training and development, and promotional opportunities that indicate signs of the glass ceiling in the workplace.
The theory of gendered organizations is that the division of labor favors men because organizations value men and their qualities associated with masculinity more highly than they value women. A lot of executives believe that women are simply just not cut out for high level jobs. In fact, in the 19th century employers deliberately set aside jobs in administration and management for men because they believed the job holder to be level-headed, impartial, technically proficient, and even aggressive (Williams, 15). All of these qualities were associated with white, middle-class masculinity. Every organization has deeply embedded assumptions about gender and gender characteristics in the work place. Female sex role stereotypes-inaccurate or partially inaccurate beliefs about women-provide the foundation upon which prevailing notions about womens inability to manage or lead effectively as executives are laid (Sekaran, 8). This plays a huge advantage for men. Men are seen to possess specialties associated with stereotypical masculine qualities such as strength, technical proficiency, and managerial ability (Williams, 12). Even men that enter the traditional female dominated jobs like nursing where it is in a sense not “manly” tend to receive preferential treatment in hiring and are channeled into certain male-identified specialties (Williams, 8). These male tokens benefit and move up in the administration unlike their opposite female tokens. Employers prefer to hire workers with few non-work distractions. By non-work distractions this includes family life at home and the issue of pregnancy. Males typically have less non-work distractions. This is primarily due to the unequal division of household labor in most families. The woman is seen as the one who takes care of personal need and the family while the man is the one that goes out and works.
Organizations are gendered because of the hierarchical division of labor. Gender segregation exists in almost every occupation. Men for the most part have better paying and most prestigious jobs and highest positions of power. Men are looked at as the providers of the family so they have to get paid more. Despite more jobs and vast technological developments women are still