Glass Ceiling

Essay by lina12mailUniversity, Bachelor's November 2004

download word file, 3 pages 3.3

"Tremendous amounts of talent are being lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt", this is a quote from Shirley Chisholm, the first African American women to be elected to the US Congress in 1968. Sadly, this quote is nevertheless true for modern present-day; women are still being discriminated because of their gender. The difference is that now, women are more likely to face treatment discrimination than access discrimination. Nowadays, institutions will more likely have a non-discrimination policy in hiring their employees. This means that women will have an equal chance to get into an organization. However, the treatment that women received inside the institution reflects that institutional racism still indeed present in modern day. Institution discriminates against women by creating glass ceiling.

Glass ceiling, according to Writh (2001), is an invisible man-made barrier, based on organizational bias, that blocks qualify women from advancing up in their organization into senior management level positions.

It denies an equal employment, opportunities, support, and salary compensation to deserving women. It doesn't allow the same opportunities for women to reach higher management, despite women having almost identical formal education and similar work experience as males, and therefore prevents success that women might achieved in their career. Sources of the discrimination can be a strongly held attitudes towards women's and men's social roles and behavior, belief on "women's and "men's jobs", belief that men worth more than women, insufficient knowledge, gender stereotypes, or just lack of respect based solely on gender.

It is true that the number of women who hold senior-management position and get the top-level salary has increased during period of time. However, the percentage of women holding a senior-management position and getting the top-level salary is still too low compare to the men. A study conducted by Karen...