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| Women
in Leadership: Does the Glass Ceiling Still Exist?
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Contents
1. Introduction
2. The presumable progress of female on top positions
3. The reality: the unsurpassable glass ceiling
4. Conclusion
5. Bibliography
Introduction
The modern society is often characterized as highly democratic,
humanistic and advanced. At the same time, the arguments,
concerning the real equality of all people regardless their
race, gender, or social position, still persist. In such a
situation, the arguments concerning the position of female
in the modern society are among the most contradictive since
on the one hand, there are people who sincerely believe that
women have eventually managed to get an equal position in
society compared to men and, at the present days, they have
really equal opportunities as men do. On the other hand, there
is a totally different view on the position of women in the
modern society, according to which the glass ceiling still
remains an unsurpassable barrier women regularly face in their
life. The latter position is more realistic and corresponds
to the actual position of females in the modern society since
their leadership is still rather an exception than a norm.
The presumable progress of female on top positions
Obviously, both points of view are grounded on certain reasons
which should be analyzed in order to fully reveal the extent
to which the belief in the real improvement of the position
of women in the modern society and their access to top positions
is erroneous.
First of all, it should be said that the fact that women have
made a great progress compared to the previous epoch is beyond
a doubt. It is really true that females play a significant
role in the modern society and they have larger opportunities
and formally they have absolutely equal rights compared to
men. As a rule, those, who believe that the glass ceiling
syndrome has gone and totally vanished from the modern society,
stand on the ground that modern women have not only equal
rights compared to men but also have wide opportunities to
realize their right.
In this respect, it is necessary to agree that nowadays women
have really got a chance to receive the same basis for their
future professional development and career growth. To put
it more precisely, modern women have access to education and
have an opportunity to receive higher education of the same
quality that men do that is one of the basic conditions of
their future perspectives as potential leaders.
Furthermore, it is really an unarguable fact that rights of
women and their opportunities are recognized and amply supported
by the modern legislation which focuses on the protection
of women against any sort of discrimination, including the
gender-related discrimination. Moreover, women are not viewed
as secondary-class citizens anymore who are supposed to spend
all their life taking care about their families, children
and household.
However, probably the strongest argument of those, who believe
that women have really overcome the glass ceiling syndrome,
is the assumption that, nowadays, women are widely represented
in practically all spheres of life and, what is more, often
they occupy the leading positions. To put it more precisely,
it is possible to estimate that many women are quite successful
politicians. For instance, nowadays, the perspective of two
female-candidates on the next President elections in the US
seems to be quite real. Similar trends may be observed in
other countries of the world, such as Germany, where the Chancellor,
i.e. the head of the government, is a woman, or the UK, which
has already experienced the epoch of Margaret Thatcher as
the Prime Minister.
Practically, the same situation is estimated to be in economic
sphere. The supporters of the belief that the current situation
indicates to the end of the epoch of the glass ceiling underline
that women may be also fond among CEOs and in boardrooms of
the most powerful companies and financial organizations. For
instance, a woman is chief executive of the London Stock Exchange
and the similar examples may be found in other developed countries,
including the US.
In such a way, judging from such a significant penetration
of women on top positions in politics and economy, it is really
possible to believe that there is no glass ceiling syndrome
anymore.
The reality: the unsurpassable glass ceiling
Unfortunately, the reality turns to be quite different from
such an optimistic belief. In actuality, the position of women
has hardly changed substantially in recent years or even decades.
Regardless the seemingly growing presentation of women in
politics and economy, in actuality, they still remain underrepresented
in a male-dominated society, especially women are missing
from top jobs.
Even though women can have a real chance to receive the higher
education similarly to men but this does not necessarily mean
that they will and actually have the real opportunities to
realize the acquired skills, abilities and knowledge in their
professional life. To put it more precisely, the recent researchers
reveal the fact that 81% of well-qualified women that can
occupy top positions face serious barriers engendered by the
existing stereotypes and preconceptions (Andrica 1997) which
are basically generated by male and accumulated in the society
where male ideology is dominating.
Furthermore, researchers also point out that many employers
simply feel an aversion to taking a risk by hiring a woman,
or not clearly planning their careers or job assignments to
benefit them and, what is more, less than 1% of CEOs see the
development of high potential of women as a priority (Feldman
1997).
In such a way, it is obvious that the stereotypes and biases
still prevent women from an opportunity to occupy top positions
in organizations. In this respect, it is even possible to
speak about the failure of anti-discrimination legislation,
which, being actually good in principle, has turned to be
unable to change the stereotypes that have been existing for
decades, if not to say centuries.
Moreover, speaking about the wider opportunities of women
in relation to their professional careers, it is necessary
to underline that top positions still remain hardly accessible
to women. In actuality, in spite of the substantial growth
of women working in different spheres, including those which
were traditionally believed as purely male-dominated, they
are still unrepresented on the top level. In other words,
even though there is a growing share of female in organizations
their perspectives of gaining high or top positions are extremely
low. As a result, the share of women among CEOs is extremely
low as well. For instance, according to a recent study only
7-9% of senior managers at Fortune 1000 firms are women (Castro
1997). The same may be said about politics where a few women
that have access to leading positions while, taken at large,
politics still remain the domain of men.
Moreover, the conditions of work and payment are still unequal.
It is not a secret that many women can hardly maintain their
careers after having children. This is particularly true for
women that used to play the leading role in organizations
where they occupied top positions. It is also important to
underline that pay gaps are also the reality of the modern
life since, as a rule, men still have more chances to receive
a better paid job, or, what is more, men earn more than women
even though they fulfill absolutely the same job. Remarkably,
the gap for part-time job is traditionally wider than for
the full-time job. As a result, asking for flexible working
still spells career death for many women in today’s
workplace.
At the same time, it is also worthy of mention another side
of the problem of the still progressing glass ceiling. In
fact, often specialists, when they speak about the glass ceiling
or poor or equal opportunities of women, forget that there
are also women from ethnic minorities who, at the present
moment, seem to be practically unrepresented among the leaders
of organizations, neither in politics nor in business. In
fact, the cases when a non-white woman is a CEO, for instance,
are very seldom.
Conclusion
Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is possible
to conclude that nowadays the glass ceiling syndrome is still
a serious problem. In fact, the position of women has not
been changed or improved substantially. In stark contrast,
the life at the top is still white and male and the arguments
in favor of the existence of equal opportunities for men and
women seem to be not very convincing. At least statistics
perfectly illustrates that women are not only underrepresented
at the top positions, but they are also often discriminated
and are not considered to be potentially perspective workers.
As a result, the current leaders prefer to develop men as
future leaders instead of developing women which potential
may be equal or even higher than the potential of some men
that occupy high positions. Obviously, such a situation cannot
remain unchanged and the problem of the glass ceiling still
has to be solved in such a way that women can get a real opportunity
to fully realize their potential and become leaders.
Bibliography:
1. Andrica, Diane. (1997). “The Glass Ceiling: Are you
Affected?” Nursing Economics. v15 n3 p162.
2. Castro, Ida L., Furchtgott-Roth, Diana. (1997). “Should
Women be Worried About the Glass Ceiling in the Workplace?”
Insight on the News. v13 n5 p24.
3. Feldman, Gayle. (1997). “Breaking the Glass Ceiling:
Women Have Had a Long Hard Struggle to Reach Their Current
Stutus in the Industry”. Publishers Weekly. v244 n31
p82.
4. Himelstein, Linda. (1997). “Breaking Through”.
Business Week. n3514 p64.
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