Glass Ceiling

The term glass ceiling was first used by Carol Hymowitz and Timothy Schellhardt in their 1986 Wall Street Journal article to describe the invisible barriers that keep women from upper management positions in American corporations. It has also been used to refer to [Page 994]the exclusion of racial and ethnic minorities from upper management, both women and men. The glass ceiling phenomenon was studied extensively during the 1990s and, although Carly Fiorina denied its existence when she was appointed CEO of Hewlett Packard in 1999, there is evidence that it still exists. There are currently many more women in upper management and executive positions, but parity has certainly not been reached, particularly in the highest positions.

Exclusion of women and racial and ethnic minorities from the possibility of promotion to senior management positions in business has a long history. In the United States, the problem of entry-level positions was aided by the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VIII, and later, the Equal Opportunity Act of 1972. In 1968, women were not even accepted in management training programs, thus preventing them from beginning their climb up the corporate ladder. During the 1980s, women began to obtain college degrees in business administration and continue on for their MBAs. By 1990, however, there were still only three women CEOs in Fortune 1000 companies: Katherine Graham, Linda Wachner, and Marion Sandler. That year, 97% of all senior managers were male, although progressively more women and minorities filled entry level and middle management positions.

In 1991, President George H. W. Bush appointed the Glass Ceiling Commission to study and prepare recommendations for eliminating the glass ceiling. The 21-member commission was chaired by Robert Reich, the secretary of labor, and consisted of 16 women, 3 of whom were senators, and 5 men. Many members were minorities. The commission defined the glass ceiling as the unseen, yet unbreachable, barrier that keeps minorities from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievement. They issued two reports in 1995: Good for Business: Making Full Use of the Nation's Capital: The Environmental Scan: A FactFinding Report of the Federal Class Ceiling Commission and A Solid Investment: Making Full Use of the Nation's Capital: Recommendations of the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission. After soliciting research from a number of organizations, their findings showed that the glass ceiling did indeed exist and that it excluded women and minorities from leadership positions. The commission was also convinced that this exclusion was not good for business and that there was a need to address the issues.

The findings reported three sets of barriers to true parity. Societal barriers were caused by stereotypes and prejudice, while structural barriers were perceived as the corporations' failure to recruit women and minorities and a hostile corporate culture. Governmental barriers included inadequate monitoring of cases as well as inadequate law enforcement. Various explanations have been forwarded for the existence of the glass ceiling. Corporations have traditionally blamed a woman's lack of experience, low motivation to succeed, having not enough or the wrong kind of education, and a lack of training. They also suggest that a woman has less interest in promotion due to a focus on family and household responsibilities. Other explanations focus on built-in organizational structure: bias in selection and promotion decisions, gender-typed jobs leading to lower expectations of the employee, a lack of developmental opportunities, few available mentors, problems with work-life balance, and lower compensation for the same job a male is performing.

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