Dismantling the Glass Ceiling ProgramIntroduction |
The Dismantling the Glass Ceiling Program is comprised of 8 Sections as listed below.
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Program Introduction
This Program was designed to present, as is possible, a broad and a specific exploration of the Glass Ceiling phenomena through a theoretical, historical, experiential, geographical and analytical perspective. As the Glass Ceiling phenomena has gained increasing recognition, there has evolved a plethora of studies and commentaries aiming to identify, explain, and strategise how to deal with such a phenomena. It is hoped that this Program will familiarise you with the prominent findings, arguments, strategies and evidence for the existence of the Glass Ceiling as a barrier for Women.
If you are wondering whether this Program will be of any value to you, may I ask that you do not base this view on whether you have encountered the Glass Ceiling. I hope that this Program reaches far beyond this, as it is not designed to merely assist those who have encountered it or to celebrate the achievements of those who have broken through it. It is designed to empower all women to become aware of the depth and scope of such a barrier and to develop an understanding of how this barrier can be dealt with.
The Glass Ceiling, I believe, is a barrier that envelops a number of other barriers, societal, organisational and governmental, as is presented in the section American Research and Findings. It does not only affect women seeking top level positions. It is not only vertical, but also horizontal. Wright and Baxter in their Study, The Glass Ceiling Hypothesis - A Comparative Study of the United States, Sweden and Australia, conclude that, "The very low representation of women at the top of authority hierarchies may create an appearance of a glass ceiling - a concentrated structure of impediments to promotion at the higher levels of organization-where in fact discrimination is either more or less constant throughout the organization or even concentrated at the bottom."
Does the Glass Ceiling exist? Yes it does and it is not invisible. Evidence to affirm this can be found throughout the Program as well as in specific sections presenting statistical evidence for Australia and America. If a woman breaks through a Glass Ceiling, does that mean that the ceiling does not exist for women in that particular sector? My answer to this question is that what matters is not that a few women break through this ceiling, but that the number of women achieving a promotion equals the number of men achieving the same level of professional status in various levels of the organisation in that sector. Then only, I believe can one say that the Ceiling does not exist for women in that sector.
The American Glass Ceiling Commission of 1991
found, the existence of the Glass Ceiling for women and minorities contradicted
"the nation's ethic of individual worth and accountability,
the
belief that education, training, dedication, and hard work will lead to
a better life." The existence of the Glass Ceiling for women in
Australia does the same. As Dr Shirley Randell in her interview points
out, "Many younger women are full of confidence in
their ability and are sure that things are different now and will be different
for them, but the statistics give lie to that...Women
still have to have exceptional accomplishments, merits, role models and mentors,
more so than men to achieve. Women still have to be consistently and extremely
high performers to get to the highest level in their professions."
The argument that organisational
practices and cultures are not barriers but are simply unfavourable and
unsuitable for women given their family commitments, is indicative of a
deeply imbedded systemic bias that is taken as being impossible to alter and
therefore maintained. Associate Professor Wendy Weeks goes further in
her interview in saying, "I think
the culture of the glass ceiling (which is still associated with the belief that
women’s primary place is in the home) is deeply ingrained in the structure and
culture of Australian society and is visible in parliament, government and
non-government organisations and the trade union movement.
Can the Glass Ceiling be dismantled? Yes it can be with a collective effort from managers, business leaders, educators, politicians, men and women who are in leadership positions and those who are responsible for educating children who can teach them the language of leadership and equality. There is ample research to show why the glass ceiling exists, what can be done and even reports about 'best practices' implemented by certain organisations. In this Program, themes of how this barrier can be overcome will continuously emerge from the studies, papers, speeches and interviews. The strategies in some sections are broad and in some very specific in scope.
Although the strategies for dismantling the Glass Ceiling have been known for some time and continues to be re-voiced, enhanced and supported by the 'best practices' of some organisations, the Glass Ceiling continues to emerge in renewed strength as "one that is worsening in its level of discrimination" according to USA House of Representatives John Dingell and Carolyn Maloney. On 24 January 2002, they released the Dingell-Maloney report: A New Look Through the Glass Ceiling, a study they commissioned from the General Accounting Office assessing the status of women in ten selected industries: Communications, Public Administration, Business and Repair Services, Entertainment and Recreation Services, Other Professional Services, Educational Services, Retail Trade, Finance, Insurance and Real Estate, Hospitals and Medical Services, and Professional Medical Services. This recent American Study found that the "wage gap widened and the glass ceiling hardened, rather than shattered, after 1995." In Australia, Labor Force 2002 statistics reveal that there is still a significant pay gap between men and women, men outnumber women in managerial and administrative jobs by more than three to one and one in every 10 board members on private sector boards is a woman.
What is, however, increasingly becoming apparent is that more women
in Australia and in the United States are
choosing to ignore the Glass Ceiling and run their own enterprise. Korn/Ferry
International's
2001
Study
What
Women Want in Business: A Survey of Executives and Entrepreneurs
reveals that
"large companies seem to be losing this “war for
talent”—
For those of us who do not choose the option to leave our workplace and begin our own enterprise, will the workplace culture ever change to eradicate this barrier? "..What can I do?" How can I make a difference?" asks Fiona Krautil, Director of Equal Opportunity in the Workplace Agency in Australia.
Her answer, " Here are 10 things that one manager can do: · Demonstrate ‘zero tolerance’ for discrimination · Include more than one woman in hiring and promotion interviews · Hold regular gender issue meetings and share stories · Assign proportional representation to task forces · Participate in diversity workshops for inspiration · Discuss gender diversity with external executives · Join a committee or organisation where you are a minority · Create work social events that female management can comfortably attend." (Advancing Women and Business: Why it’s Good for the Bottom-Line Queensland University of Technology, 20 March 2001)
Former ACTU President, Jennie George in response to being asked what she plans to do for women in her present role as Labor MP, succinctly states, "The main issue is to get women involved, active and participating. Once their confidence grows their potential is limitless."
And as it has been said before, in occupying positions of leadership and decision-making, we not only contribute to the nation's economic success, but more importantly, in the long-term, we have an equal share of power in shaping society. ( Eva Cox, Dr Shirley Randell) In doing so, it is from this grass-roots approach that we can focus on broader societal changes in gender roles that will bring about the dismantling of the Glass Ceiling barrier against women.
I would like to thank the many who have taken part in this Program. Their doing so celebrates the spirit of International Women's Day as they speak up and identify themselves in relation to a significant issue for all women.
If you are interested in sharing your thoughts on any aspect of the Glass Ceiling Barrier, I invite you to Email Me In your email, indicate if you would like to have your comments published here. All personal contact details will not be published.
The virtual Centre has previously held a question/answer discussion on the Glass Ceiling in its Have Your Say Section. This time, the invitation is open, undirected and timely as we celebrate International Women's Day 2002.
I hope you find this Program empowering and resourceful. I would like to leave you with some poignant statements featured in this Program.
Diann Rodgers-Healey
"At the level of rhetoric few people would deny that women have
made and can make a major contribution to public life. However, co-existent with
the general ‘formal’ acceptance of equal rights, there are strong currents
of opinion which continue to expect women to put husbands and children, and male
organisational leaders,
first and
foremost, rather than directly contribute as leaders."
Associate
Professor Wendy Weeks, CLW Interview 2002
"The glass ceiling has been pushed a great deal upwards since Edith Haynes unsuccessfully sought admission as a solicitor in 1896. It has been smashed by a number of talented and strong minded individual women since that time, then repaired, only to be smashed again. This cycle will be broken along with the glass ceiling;- but there is still much work to be done with sledgehammers, lap tops, frying pans, woks and even nail files. Women must work together, not against each other, and must recognise the power of their vote in democracies like Japan and Australia and use that power. The glass ceiling will only cease to exist in reality and in the minds of women and men when the mediocre and the lacklustre female lawyer is able to achieve the same degree of success as the mediocre and lacklustre male lawyer; when lawyers who happen to be women are not referred to as "lady lawyers" or "woman lawyers" or "female lawyers"; when those lawyers who happen to be women are appointed judges without comment on their gender and when young female lawyers feel just at home in their profession as their young male counterparts. Although we have made "smashing" progress, we must remain vigilant to ensure the holes that have been made in the glass ceiling are never repaired and the remnants are irrevocably removed, both in reality and in people's minds." The Glass Ceiling Exists only in Women's Minds, Justice M A McMurdo, President of the Queensland Supreme Court
"It
is very unfashionable to say this now but it seems to me that for inexperienced
people the barriers are still invisible, and are just the same as they were when
I was an inexperienced person. Many younger women are full of confidence in
their ability and are sure that things are different now and will be different
for them, but the statistics give lie to that. The community too takes refuge
in, for example, the higher results of girls at the end of schooling, more
female undergraduates and more women entering ‘prestigious’ professions like
law and medicine. They rush in to support the boys, which is not politically
difficult in comparison with paying attention to the struggle for girls. Women
still have to have exceptional accomplishments, merits, role models and mentors,
more so than men to achieve. Women still have to be consistently and extremely
high performers to get to the highest level in their professions.
"Basically, the underlying cause that must be addressed is that dirty old fashioned word - patriarchy. Women across the world have to be regarded as equal to, but not the same as, men and we have a long way to go to achieve that. We cannot claim equality in the developed world while our sisters in the developing world are subsidising our affluence with their inequality." Eileen Pittaway, Director, Centre for Refugee Research, UNSW, CLW Interview 2002
"Essentially, women still have to be twice as
savvy as their male colleagues if they want to be appointed to senior
decision-making roles; and once there, have to constantly prove that they can do
the job. In contrast, it is usually assumed that the men will succeed!"
"Putting a bomb under the concrete canopy so that the strong, struggling, powerful women under it can get out. Let us all look at the sky together. the brains of the women under the concrete canopy - in the factories, etc, their persistence and abilities are what we need. We need to join them in a joint struggle, not one that is only 'about us' and 'for us'. I'd rather be alongside the women workers getting their strength and learning from their strategising, than nosing about amongst the blokes ankles any day. after all, that's where the women who 'break' the glass ceiling generally are - a toehold on the toes of the blokes who stuck the glass ceiling there in the first place." Dr Jocelynne Scutt, Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, Tasmania, CLW Interview 2002
"I
think of the barriers as more a complex web, than a ‘glass ceiling’. This
web is made up of many threads... More
subtle are the pressures on women that keep them away from public life and
under-represented in our parliaments. These include social conditioning that
means some women under-estimate their capabilities. Alongside this, the great
majority of women carry – or will carry - the double load of paid working
life, along with the domestic work and care of families and communities. The
great imbalance that persists between most men and women at home, shapes and
constrains the possibilities for women in practical ways."
Senator
Natasha Stott Despoja, Leader Australian Democrats, CLW Interview 2002
"The key cause is a long standing male chauvinism in Australia where sporting masculinity and mateship are valued ahead of intellectual achievements . This has impacted on the way politics has developed so that parliamentary debate more often resembles a game of football than a rational debate about ideas and possible resolution of conflict. The culture of the parliament will only change as society itself changes to value women and men genuinely debating issues in an atmosphere of respect and tolerance." Margaret Reynolds, Senator and National President of the United Nations Association, CLW Interview 2002
"When I was first asked to contribute
to this forum, my first thought was ‘glass ceiling? That’s never been in my
sight line, but I have come up against a lot of brick walls!’"
Carolyn
Leigh, Project Manager,
communitybuilders.nsw
website, NSW Premier's Department, CLW Interview 2002
"What I think will not happen is an equal spread of women across all kinds of work and up all kinds of varied corporate ladders. Some industries and companies have few women anywhere, let alone at the top." Trish Caswell, Executive Director, Institute for Global Sustainability, RMIT, CLW Interview 2002
No"Normally, life outside the work force is organised by the spouse,
children's needs are managed by the spouse and the man returns home to a well
functional household. This is not the norm with women and I believe that
unfortunately it still seems to be somewhat a novelty in Australian life for
women to be the predominant financial provider.
" I think in my field I have seen the following initiatives that have meant the barrier is not imposed for women: * Flexible work practices in terms of ability to work part-time or from home for part of the time * Being a knowledge based environment, people are able to use their knowledge, skills, networks supported by technology. * Productivity of people is not dependent on physical presence in one place. Productivity is measured in outcomes rather than activity * Women already in senior management (either as founder and owner or having progressed) are used to accommodating differing practices, whilst maintaining business and productivity goals." Melanie Kontze, Director, IT&T Sector Australasia, TMP Worldwide, CLW Interview 2002
While I, and those I work with, value my work, I don’t believe anyone
breaks through the glass ceiling permanently.
I believe each problem has a glass ceiling.
I have been fortunate to work with and learn from people who
care for vulnerable people in the community.
I am inspired by their humility, compassion and belief in others.
"Initially I think we can all promote change by leading as women in male dominated systems and not forgetting that we are representing women's interests. We need to advocate for women and not accept subtle discrimination. Women in leadership can teach younger women the language of leadership, but also how to broaden the current paradigms to make them more inclusive of women's experiences." Dr Louise Newman, Director, NSW Institute of Psychiatry, CLW Interview 2002