Glass Ceiling Research Paper

In an article written by Shanna B. Van Ness for the Huffington Post, she writes about her own personal experience with the glass ceiling. Shanna writes that she had been on her job for five years, and when she asked for a promotion and salary increase, she was denied, and the explanation she got was “why should I pay her extra for something she already does.” With former First Lady, Congresswoman, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton running for the office of President of the United States, the time has come again for the age old question, does the glass ceiling still exist? Shanna writes that after five years, she asked herself if it was possible she was the reason why she did not get promoted. She decided to reinvent herself. She went to
Glass ceilings are most often observed in the workplace and are usually a barrier to achieving power and success equal to that of a more dominant population. The concept of glass ceiling was originally introduced outside of print media at the National Press Club in July 1979 at a Conference of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press by Katherine Lawrence of Hewlett Packard. This was part of an ongoing discussion of a clash between written policies of promotion versus action opportunities for women at HP. The term was coined by Lawrence and HP manager Maryanne Schreiber. The term was later used in March 1984 by Gay Bryant. She was the former editor of Working Woman magazine and was changing jobs to be the editor of Family Circle. In an Ad week article by Nora Frenkel, Bryant was reported as saying, "Women have reached a certain point, and I call it the glass ceiling. They're in the top of middle management and they're stopping and getting stuck. There is not enough room for all those women at the top. Some are going into
Female executives who are Feminist say the enforcement of the Anti-Discrimination Laws are lax. Men in corporate management tend not to perceive discrimination as a real problem, thereby making it virtually impossible to implement effective remedies. According to an exhaustive study by John P. Fernandez, white men consistently ranked problems encountered by women executives as insignificant compared to how women ranked them. So without constant pressure from the outside and strong legal remedies, the very real problems of race and sex discrimination in the executive suite may never be adequately addressed. There are various problems with the glass ceiling effect, some of them are, women place too much weight on the existence of a glass ceiling, women make choices and then complain about them, and women are constantly mean to each other. Some people question the whole existence of the glass ceiling effect, they ask does prejudice still exist?