You may need to prove yourself twice as much as your male coworkers, especially if you happen to be both female and a minority.
Although there are certainly exceptions to every rule, by and large both women and minorities should expect that their climb to the top will be difficult. What Can an Individual Do to Combat the Glass Ceiling Effect?Unfortunately, there are no guaranteed strategies that will help an individual break through the glass ceiling. Clearly, the effect is extremely pervasive throughout all sorts of industries. According to a 2005 article by Paul Igasak on the Wall Street Journal’s Career Journal site, a similar study showed that 97 percent of top executives at the same companies were white. In today’s lawsuit-driven society, employers hesitate to create a written policy that blatantly discriminates against women.Ī 2003 report by the federal Glass Ceiling Commission showed that only seven to nine percent of upper management at Fortune 1000 firms were women. The ceiling is made of glass because the woman can see beyond. The glass ceiling is so named because it is a point beyond which women cannot reach or a ceiling on their advancement. Instead, they find themselves almost - but not quite - reaching the top ranks. Women are no longer shunted into a completely different career track. While the issue of the mommy track has largely been addressed, the problem of the glass ceiling effect remains. Some of these perks include flexible scheduling, the ability to bring a child to work for the day and even employer-run daycare facilities. Increasingly, companies are also offering additional perks to encourage employees of both genders to find a balance between work and home life. Legal challenges and a change in thinking have led many employers to offer additional leave time, some with pay, to new parents as well. If the family can afford to live on one income for long enough, the parents can alternate their leave, resulting in one parent or the other being at home for the first six months of the child’s life. Furthermore, the inclusion of men in the protections of the Act allows fathers to stay at home as well. This Act enables women to remain in the workforce following childbirth by allowing them a reasonable period of time to stay at home.
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 compels employers to grant any eligible employee, male or female, 12 weeks of unpaid leave within any 12 month period for, among other conditions, the birth or adoption of a child.
The mommy track was made largely obsolete by a combination of factors. Thus, many companies shunted young women onto the “mommy track,” a sort of sideline in which promotions and raises never resulted in the woman being granted duties that could have a real effect on the company. If women did return to work, they were believed to be less dedicated employees because of their maternal duties. The perception was that women would take extensive time off or leave the workforce altogether once they had children. In the 1980s, the term “glass ceiling” was often used in tandem with another term, “mommy track.” At that time, it was common for women of childbearing age to be considered less motivated and less disciplined than male employees or older females. Women who entered the workforce in large numbers during the late 1970s and early 1980s found themselves unable to advance beyond a certain level of management. It is unclear exactly who named the phenomenon, but the term was heavily used during the mid-1980s. The glass ceiling effect is the pervasive resistance to the efforts of women and minorities to reach the top ranks of management in major corporations.
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