Glass Ceiling

The Glass Ceiling

The glass ceiling starts to form itself very early on. From the moment a woman enters the work force after college, she is faced with much discrimination and unjust belief that she will not be able to do as well of a job than a man. A man and a woman, who both have the same education and training for a job, will have a considerable gap in their yearly income. In a first year job, a man will make approximately $14,619 compared to a woman who will make only $12,201. That is a pay gap of 17%(Gender Pay 1). There is no reason why there should be any gap in their incomes during the first year of their jobs. They have both had the same formal education and both have the same qualifications necessary for the job, yet they are being treated unequally. The woman has not shown herself to be incapable of accomplishing her job and has given her employer no reason to doubt her commitment to her career other than the simple fact that she is a woman. And this discrimination does not go away. After five years of constant working, at the same rate and level as each other, the pay gap actually increases. A male will get paid an average of $28,119 while a female only receives $22,851 (Gender Pay 1). This is how things have been done for years. The man typically gets paid more money and holds more executive jobs than women do, simply because they are males. A man will be paid an average of 47% more than females in the course of their lives (Gender Pay 1). Although this is wrong, this has been tradition for so long, both men and women have accepted this way of thinking as right and have just gone along with it.

There have been changes in regards to women in top positions within the last few years. However, although those advances are positive, they are still nowhere equal. A certain statistic may say that there has been a 14% increase in the number of women in executive jobs for a certain company. However, although that increase is no doubt positive, it fails to tell the true story. That increase is only increases from a very minute number, if not zero, of women who previously held that position. Another thing that that statistic fails to mention is that the most of them include women in that position as that company from all of its worldwide locations. In other words, only 14% of executives around that world for a certain company are women (Misleading 1). So even though this may be an improvement on women's behalf from years ago, it is still nowhere equal. Men and women must work hard together to make things equal.

"It's not the profession that has the glass ceiling, someone has put it there" (Brower 162). Men need to change their attitudes and actions towards women in the workplace. They need to abandon believing that they are superior to women. Most men truly believe that a woman is simply not capable of doing as well of a job, or better, than a man can do.