Break in case of glass
By Cristina Almudevar
Despite the workforce, slowly, becoming more women-friendly, there is still a “glass ceiling” to break through.
As mentioned by Mimi Schippers, a feminist perspective is one that acknowledges that gender inequality is, inherently, a social construct but rejects this as a preferable lifestyle.
In a 2010 study, it was shown that women are still earning $0.77 to every $1.00 that men earn. A recent article in the Huffington Post shows that the gender pay gap is worse in states that have not yet raised minimum wage higher than the federal average.
If you Google “female CEOs versus male CEOs,” you get numerous articles asking why are there so few female CEOs. The Fortune 500 list is only 4.6 per cent women.
This is the glass ceiling. This, to put it frankly, is bullshit.
This problem is nothing new: there have always been assumptions about gender that has affected the way each gender is understood and treated.
The male is typically placed within the dominant role, such as boss, doctor, or husband while the female is typically seen as the subservient in the pair, such as wife, nurse, or secretary.
If in everyday life, women are not given agency in how people view them, how are we to be taken seriously in the workforce?
The glass ceiling is, sadly, still real and still prevalent in the working women’s life.
We, as ambitious women, should take a hard look around at how society perpetuates male dominance and take steps to begin to rectify it.
It could be as simple as not letting a man interrupt you when trying to make a point. Sometimes it’s not the big gestures that get someone’s opinion—it’s the small, everyday gestures that can leave the largest mark.