Is Glass Ceiling For Women a Myth?

First appeared on Technorati: http://technorati.com/women/article/is-glass-ceiling-for-women-a1/#ixzz1F1Aa1DUq

Last Thursday I attended a conference sponsored by the US Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, and the Women Labor Bureau. The conference theme was: Flexibility at the workplace.

Among the subjects discussed was the ability and capability of women in general to get to the C Suite positions and the barriers in the way, including lack of flexibility of working conditions

The topic reminded me of research I had done a couple of months ago about the percentage of women in the C suite compared to their male colleagues, as well as their presence and voices in board member and executive positions

Granted, the last few years have seen a bit of progress by women in the workforce, like in the Supreme Court of the United States, where in 220 years, only four women have served as justices, two of them nominated on the last two years by President Obama: Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

We have seen for the first time a female presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, and a female vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin (regardless of any political affiliations), as well as an increased number in female governors, both candidates and elected governors in the 2011 electoral race; Letitia “Tish” Long became the first woman to head a major intelligence agency. But we have also seen a standstill in the female leadership in 2010, as for every woman who was promoted to a C suite position, another was lost, according to Fortune magazine

We have also seen debates that were mostly negative around the placement of both female justices doubting their objectiveness; as well as the sexist remarks made about both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin on the way they dressed, hair styles, how they looked, need of plastic surgeries, etc.

Statistics from the US Department of Education in 2009 show women at 57% of the students on college campuses and comprising around 60% of master’s degree recipients, as well as doctoral degrees awarded to more women than men. Nearly half of the US workforce is female, so logic dictates that there should be roughly 230 female CEOs, but reality numbers show that less than 10% of executives in large publicly traded firms are women, 12 female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies; only 6% of the most highly paid executives with titles such as chairman, chief executive officer, president and COO are women; only 15% sit on the board of directors; furthermore 12% of large companies don’t have a single woman on their boards (Korn/Ferry International).

These phenomena, accompanied by the fact that females working full time earn 81% of every dollar earned by men, have been going on forever and were dubbed by the Wall Street Journal as the “Glass Ceiling” that depicts limitations faced by women and minorities to advance into senior positions in corporate organizations. (We are only discussing factors affecting women in this post.)

In 1991, Senator Robert Dole Introduced the “Glass Ceiling Act” that was signed into a law as an amendment to Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1991. The Act established a commission to investigate if a Glass Ceiling existed or not, and if it did, to identify the barriers to placing more women and minorities into senior positions.

The commission found that, though CEOs understood the need to include women and minorities in the ranks of senior management, this belief was not shared at all levels of the organizations

The study also found 3 main barriers contributing to the Glass Ceiling causes:
1- Societal: Limited educational opportunities and bias against women and minorities
2- Internal Structural: Corporate practices; management shortcomings like outreach, recruiting and retaining female and minorities talents. Organizational Cultures that exclude women and minorities to participate in activities that will lead to advancement such as career development assignments, mentoring and management training
3- Governmental: Inconsistent enforcement of Equal Opportunity Employment laws, and poor collection and distribution of reports and statistics that showcase the problems

Audits are been conducted regularly by the commission to monitor the progress made in solving the Glass Ceiling.

So is the Glass Ceiling for women a myth or not?

Diversity starts at home.

 

Sahar Andrade
Diversity Consultant – Social Media Strategist
Sahar Consulting, LLC.
http://www.saharconsulting.com
(818)861 9434

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Diversity: Tolerance Through Communications- Part 2

Building on part one of this post, on how dialog is an effective communication tool, the next step will be how to leverage elements of dialog for a better outcome:

A: Make sure that we are conscious of how we react to different situations and to suspend our response by holding off on any judgment, especially without reliable information or just based on our own personal experience.

B: Suspend our decision making until we get all the facts, and not behave on impulse or based on partial or wrong information. 
Dialog is great to help understand different sides and to make decisions. Through dialog people feel heard even if the decision isn’t to their liking, it creates less resentment.

C: Listen to the other party, stop talking, create a space in our heads and around us to properly listen, look a person in the eye, open our mind, focus on the person that is talking, their conversation. Effective listening also means that we encourage the other party to speak freely in a non-threatening environment till our turn comes up, then we do the same. Ask open-ended questions not to trap them or to win debates but to find common ground, and finally observe the verbal and non verbal clues.

 

Keep in mind that we disagree with ideas and not with people; never demonize anyone. We should try to understand why others disagree with us and why they think they are right. Listening carefully to them make them feel that we care about how they think and how they feel.

In the process, we can discover something new about someone and learn from them; dialog helps uncover hidden assumptions that stand in the way of effective communications which may be blocking the way of understanding and bring it up to the surface.

We should only represent ourselves in a dialog and not as a group or as a community, treat others as peers, listen with empathy, acknowledge that we heard and that we care, look for common ground , look for hidden assumptions. 
Dialog is about WE, options and solutions. Looking at our past and to the foundation of our nation, we can learn how to move forward, we can agree to disagree.

We can believe what we believe, but we don’t have the right to crowd other people’s space or impose our ways on them, or shove our beliefs down their throats. Realize that we don’t have to agree with each other to respect each other; only then may be hearts will soften to embrace those who are different from us.

We ALL also need to remember that sensitivity and respect travels in both directions and should be practiced by both parties. We don’t have to accept something just because it is politically correct.

Let us open our minds to the magnificent range and convolution of our humanity. I leave you with this quote from Robert Kennedy Jr. that appeared in O Magazine in February of 2007:

“The big threat to America is the way we react to terrorism by throwing away what everybody values about our country–a commitment to human rights. America is a great nation because we are a good nation. When we stop being a good nation, we stop being great.

Diversity starts at home.

Sahar Andrade
Executive Director
Sahar Consulting 
http://www.saharconsulting.com

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