Breaking (Down) The Glass Ceiling

I find that this ultimate feminist buzzword tends to provoke images of beautiful crystal domes… But alas, it actually represents the status quo of institutionalised oppression, usually in the corporate sphere. “The glass ceiling” is a phrase often thrown about as proof of workplace discrimination, but unfortunately the full significance of its meaning is often lost upon those who need to understand it most (read: wealthy white men in positions of power). So let’s smash this glass ceiling. And by smash I mean carefully deconstruct and explain through specific substructure.

What even is this ominous glass ceiling?

The glass ceiling refers to the discrimination women face in the modern workforce, where they are told on surface level that sexism is gone and women can achieve any level of success that they wish. However the simultaneous reality is that women clearly do not achieve success at an equal rate to men, due to the fact that sexism is indeed alive and kicking in the workforce. We’ve all heard the standard statistic “women make 77c for every man’s (US) dollar”. Those who oppose the recognition of workplace discrimination undermine this statistic by arguing that it has never been proven, and there are a multitude of studies that provide conflicting results. This is absolutely correct. The 77c for a man’s dollar does not accurately represent the reality of women’s earning in modern society. It is in fact only white women who earn 77c to every white man’s dollar. Black women earn 69c for every white man’s dollar, and Latina women only earn 57c. This doesn’t even begin to delve into the discrimination faced by trans women, indigenous women, queer women etc. So what we see is that it is indeed difficult to find a definitive statistic for corporate oppression, because most studies do not take the intersections between sex, race, sexuality and gender identity into account. However, despite what anti-feminists insinuate, this doesn’t disprove the existence of sexism… And by the way, these numbers are from government sites which control for career choice. Bam. Sexism exists.

University of Oregon Study

Now let’s actually talk about the interesting stuff.

What causes the invisible barrier that prevents women from entering the top echelons of their 

careers?

Again we visit our old friend gender roles, and the resulting socialisation that prevents women from achieving the same levels of corporate success as men. Women are conditioned to embody “feminine” traits, such as submissiveness and passivity, a nurturing personality and “motherly” tendencies. However, society is simultaneously conditioned to look down upon such traits, and view them as less worthy of respect than typically “masculine” skills, like logical thinking and muscular strength. Click here to read how this gender divide has nothing to do with biology. Essentially, we have a workforce which prioritises masculinity over femininity, and hence men over women. Of course, recently there has been a push to place legislative checks and balances to prevent discrimination against women. In Australia, it is illegal to deny a women a position and/or promotion due to her sex. Unfortunately this does not effectively abolish workplace discrimination, because the glass ceiling is built on a much more subtle premise than can be solved by blanket legislation.

The majority of people in society are not actively bigoted misogynists, but average people who are susceptible to social conditioning. The catch is that said conditioning is inherently sexist. Joy. So when the polite, educated, male employer is deciding if he should hire Jack or Jill, he is most likely not leaning towards Jack because he actively thinks Jill is a weak, incapable woman. Rather he is subconsciously aware that there is a devaluation of women’s labour, and so reasons that Jack is probably a better asset to the company than Jill. It is hence difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Jill was discriminated against, yet we can easily see that sexism continues to be a relevant factor in women’s career paths.

And it’s not just sexist employers – typically female dominated careers are devalued simply because society doesn’t respect female labour. Undermining the glass ceiling theory by stating that women “choose lower paying jobs than men” just further proves its existence. Through social conditioning and gender roles, women on the whole are pigeon-holed into certain careers which require “feminine skills”, and hence paid less due to – again – the devaluation of female labour. Teaching was literally a highly respected, well paid profession until it became female dominated in the Industrial Revolution.

This is the true nature of the glass ceiling; it is not blatant, conscious misogyny, but the inevitability of women facing subtle barriers built by the pervasive influence of gender roles. Despite women being able to “see” their goals and supposedly given the means to achieve them, a multitude of unrecognisable factors results in far fewer women actually gaining success than man.

TL;DR:

·       -   Statistics on workplace discrimination are unreliable, but this unreliability actually further proves gender wage gaps.

·       -  Socialisation of gender roles causes

o   Inherently sexist employers

o   A devaluation of female labour

·        -  Breaking down gender roles is more effective than anti-workplace discrimination legislation in preventing prejudice.

·        - The glass ceiling is a legitimate and complex concept, not a meaningless, overused buzzword.

Smashing J

Hannah