Women’s Glass Ceiling in a Workplace

Yamini is a coder and a blogger. She writes about workplace biases that women face on regular basis.

We all know about the struggles that women go through in their daily life, but very few of us know about the unseen barriers and problems that women face in their workplace. Today’s topic is all about these unseen barriers known as  the ‘glass ceiling’. The United States Federal Glass Ceiling Commission defines the glass ceiling as “The unseen, yet non-breachable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements”. These barriers are the major reason that today, women are not able to reach the positions that they truly deserve.

Before finding the ways to break the glass ceiling it is necessary to understand the reason why glass ceilings exist in our society. The list is quite long. The causes for the glass ceiling are not always measurable and fixed most of the time; it’s a cultural problem fueled by society rules and practises. According to a report one of the major reasons for the glass ceiling is that ‘Women take on more childcare and household duties than men do’. This means that on an average, women who have children are paid less, are less likely to be promoted or to get a raise as they are usually perceived as less competent. Our society believes that working mothers are less committed towards their child and their household responsibilities. We are living in 2020 but still our society believes that the sole responsibility of raising a child is of that of mothers.

This is not the only reason. Another major reason for the glass ceiling is sexual harassment at the workplace. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research almost more than 8 in 10 women face sexual harassment at the work place and about 46 percent of those women who are sexually harassed leave their jobs.

If we try, there are a number of ways to break the glass ceiling. One and most important way is all employees should be paid equally for equal work. Also there should be parental leave so that men can also stay at home and help in bringing up their child. This will not only help to break the glass ceiling but will help in building child-father relationships.

To conclude the article I would like to say that, “the glass ceiling doesn’t only affect women, nor is it solely a woman’s job to fix it”.