Women and the Glass Ceiling
13 June 2014
Read by 3222 persons
Despite their growing presence in the workplace, there is often mention of a glass ceiling that hinders women's career advancement and limits their access to decision-making and leadership positions, which often remain reserved for men.
The expression "glass ceiling" appeared in the United States in the late 1970s to describe the "invisible barriers" to the promotion of women in hierarchical structures. This glass ceiling is all the more significant because it is neither visible nor clearly identified.
It must be acknowledged that, year after year, this situation is not improving, across all sectors, which is somewhat puzzling...
The question is to understand what, with equal skills, hinders the professional advancement of women compared to that of men, and how this can be remedied?
Is it sexist prejudice?
Several factors can explain this situation, including psychological factors related to the weight of stereotypes and norms.
The ambition and competitiveness valued in careers appear as masculine qualities and not feminine ones. Some psychological studies reveal that concepts such as charisma, combativeness, power, and authority are implicitly associated with men and less with women.
These stereotypes would have an impact both on recruitment and upstream, on the choices made by women who have internalized them. This would explain a lower professional ambition, less combativeness, and less self-confidence.
Are companies responsible?
The glass ceiling can also be explained by obstacles and blockages related to the history and functioning of organizations and professional worlds. The question of the balance between private and professional life has been the fundamental question at the origin of the glass ceiling. Can we reconcile the two?
There is no doubt that the ideal manager model is still largely masculine. Companies still value above all availability, which is more difficult to combine for women who still assume most of the household tasks. Motherhood, because it induces career discontinuities, is also detrimental to them.
The importance given by companies to mobility (increasingly international) is also problematic. It generally assumes that the spouse puts their career second, while classically it is the man's career that is favored.
Another factor also highlighted is that women have more difficulty benefiting from informal networks in a very male-dominated leadership world that favors co-optation. Especially since maintaining one's network requires a lot of time, which they precisely tend to lack.
How to remedy it?
Through legal means that would promote professional equality between men and women on the following axes: changing mentalities, better guidance, fairer recruitment, continuing education, guaranteeing the same career advancement opportunities for women and men, and equal pay.
A commitment from companies to make their recruitment more objective; to no longer emphasize "availability" which tends to exclude female candidates; or to guarantee the maintenance of salary during maternity leave, for example.
It appears crucial to change the corporate culture so that it is more aware of the issue of gender equality. At a time when performance and efficiency are calculated according to the time spent in the company, women should be able to demonstrate, if given the opportunity, that it is quite possible to be performant by managing time and presence differently. If that's the case, men might also adopt this rhythm.
It goes without saying that a radical change in society as a whole would certainly be necessary for this glass ceiling to disappear definitively. Men would need to accept more of their share of responsibilities in the couple and take on more household tasks. The professional inequalities between women and men require the "de-specialization" of roles and a greater involvement of men in the domestic sphere, which is far from being the case at present...
Food for thought...
Philippe Montant
CEO of ReKrute
The expression "glass ceiling" appeared in the United States in the late 1970s to describe the "invisible barriers" to the promotion of women in hierarchical structures. This glass ceiling is all the more significant because it is neither visible nor clearly identified.
It must be acknowledged that, year after year, this situation is not improving, across all sectors, which is somewhat puzzling...
The question is to understand what, with equal skills, hinders the professional advancement of women compared to that of men, and how this can be remedied?
Is it sexist prejudice?
Several factors can explain this situation, including psychological factors related to the weight of stereotypes and norms.
The ambition and competitiveness valued in careers appear as masculine qualities and not feminine ones. Some psychological studies reveal that concepts such as charisma, combativeness, power, and authority are implicitly associated with men and less with women.
These stereotypes would have an impact both on recruitment and upstream, on the choices made by women who have internalized them. This would explain a lower professional ambition, less combativeness, and less self-confidence.
Are companies responsible?
The glass ceiling can also be explained by obstacles and blockages related to the history and functioning of organizations and professional worlds. The question of the balance between private and professional life has been the fundamental question at the origin of the glass ceiling. Can we reconcile the two?
There is no doubt that the ideal manager model is still largely masculine. Companies still value above all availability, which is more difficult to combine for women who still assume most of the household tasks. Motherhood, because it induces career discontinuities, is also detrimental to them.
The importance given by companies to mobility (increasingly international) is also problematic. It generally assumes that the spouse puts their career second, while classically it is the man's career that is favored.
Another factor also highlighted is that women have more difficulty benefiting from informal networks in a very male-dominated leadership world that favors co-optation. Especially since maintaining one's network requires a lot of time, which they precisely tend to lack.
How to remedy it?
Through legal means that would promote professional equality between men and women on the following axes: changing mentalities, better guidance, fairer recruitment, continuing education, guaranteeing the same career advancement opportunities for women and men, and equal pay.
A commitment from companies to make their recruitment more objective; to no longer emphasize "availability" which tends to exclude female candidates; or to guarantee the maintenance of salary during maternity leave, for example.
It appears crucial to change the corporate culture so that it is more aware of the issue of gender equality. At a time when performance and efficiency are calculated according to the time spent in the company, women should be able to demonstrate, if given the opportunity, that it is quite possible to be performant by managing time and presence differently. If that's the case, men might also adopt this rhythm.
It goes without saying that a radical change in society as a whole would certainly be necessary for this glass ceiling to disappear definitively. Men would need to accept more of their share of responsibilities in the couple and take on more household tasks. The professional inequalities between women and men require the "de-specialization" of roles and a greater involvement of men in the domestic sphere, which is far from being the case at present...
Food for thought...
Philippe Montant
CEO of ReKrute
