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The "Glass Ceiling" Is Misleading

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    The glass ceiling has
    been with us for a while
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    and is a very popular
    metaphor still.
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    So you'll read it in
    journalism in particular,
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    but also in the social science
    literature, the metaphor used.
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    I think that it is
    not a good metaphor.
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    We certainly still
    have prejudice
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    against women in leadership
    roles in various ways.
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    So you could say,
    well, glass ceiling
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    is a metaphor for prejudice.
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    But if you look at it in a
    more precise or detailed way,
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    at the notion of
    a glass ceiling,
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    I think we can see
    how misleading it is.
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    For one thing, it
    suggests that the barriers
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    are way up there
    in the hierarchy so
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    that a woman would,
    of course, have
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    a career in the
    same way as a man.
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    But then she gets near the top.
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    She thinks she's going
    to become executive vice
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    president or maybe CEO.
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    And then whoops, she
    finds out she can't.
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    She didn't realize that before,
    according to this notion.
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    But she hits her head
    on the glass ceiling.
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    So that's profoundly misleading
    because the challenges
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    that women face in having
    successful careers are not just
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    at the top.
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    They are all the way
    along the career,
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    from step one through
    step two, step
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    three, all the way
    through the career.
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    So the reason you
    have so few women
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    at the top of some
    hierarchies, such as being
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    a chief executive officer
    in the Fortune 500,
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    is that there are few women at
    that level right before that.
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    So women progressively
    drop out of the hierarchy.
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    It isn't that the women
    are there in great numbers
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    and then can't get
    to that upper level.
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    It's a progressive
    drop-out that occurs
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    for many different reasons.
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    So it is a rather odd
    metaphor, actually,
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    in terms of not
    capturing the phenomenon.
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    It isn't anybody
    systematically misleading them,
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    but there is the idea
    that there is no prejudice
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    and that they have
    equal opportunity.
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    And they've lived a
    life, through school
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    and through college, with
    equal opportunity fairly much.
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    So it seems that that's true.
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    But then they don't
    look out and see, well,
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    women are systematically
    not doing as
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    well in their careers as men--
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    dropping out more, not
    rising nearly as fast.
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    And so I think that's not that
    salient to many young women
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    because they're not
    in the career yet.
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    And then they may think, well,
    that's a different generation.
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    We have equal opportunity.
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    And then they enter
    the labyrinth.
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    Ask those women 10 years later
    when their male colleagues
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    very often have moved forward
    faster than they have.
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    Or perhaps they're at
    home, raising children,
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    and may never get
    back to anything
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    like a fast-track career.
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    And so then they have a
    different set of ideas about it
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    through experience.
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    So the problem is to inform
    younger women, in particular,
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    about the labyrinth so
    that they will approach it
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    thoughtfully and not
    have regret later on,
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    but yet not be discouraging.
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    So it's kind of discouraging
    to tell young women,
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    no, we don't have
    equal opportunity,
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    and let me tell you why.
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    But the labyrinth idea is meant
    to be in that middle range--
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    that, hey, you have challenges
    that your young-men colleagues
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    don't have, but it's a
    labyrinth, not a glass ceiling.
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    So maybe if you
    figure it out and are
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    very thoughtful
    about it and learn
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    about the contours
    of the labyrinth,
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    you will reach the
    goals that you've
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    set for yourself in your life.
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    They're usually very smart.
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    They have thought it through.
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    I mean, there's accidental
    features of careers,
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    of course, opportunities that
    happen to come to a person.
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    But I think those women
    have been thoughtful
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    about their careers, and
    they've made choices that
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    were enabling in various ways.
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    One of the biggest challenges
    for women in terms of career
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    is family, of course.
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    That's the obvious.
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    And that comes often
    relatively young when
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    you have all your training,
    you have your MBA or your law
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    degree or whatever.
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    And then you're
    going out on a career
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    just like your male colleagues.
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    And then, for many women,
    there those decisions
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    about marriage
    and child-bearing,
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    which, depending on
    how that's managed,
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    can be quite disabling for
    the career because they often
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    involve moving off
    the fast track.
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    Either some women
    would drop out,
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    and then other women would
    want to go part-time,
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    understandably.
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    But then they're
    off the fast track.
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    So you see women who are CEOs.
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    Occasionally,
    they've dropped out
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    and stayed home for a few
    years, but that's very rare.
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    Usually, they either
    have not had children.
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    Or if they do, they've just
    managed it in other ways.
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    Perhaps they have one of those
    husbands who shares equally
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    or whatever, or
    they've managed to--
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    many women manage
    to have families
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    and successful careers, but
    it's much more challenging often
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    for women than men
    because women ordinarily
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    have more responsibility
    for child-rearing.
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    So that's a challenge
    that comes very early.
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    Perhaps many women
    don't realize that
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    in studies that have been
    done, not managing that well
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    is very damaging to careers.
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    It's hard, after
    dropping out, to get back
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    to a successful career.
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    It shouldn't be.
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    The on-ramp should be there.
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    But often, it's not.
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    And then the part-time work,
    it should be good-quality work
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    that could result in promotion.
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    But in fact, that's
    not the case.
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    Ordinarily, it's
    dumbed-down work
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    compared to what you
    would have if you
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    were in a full-time career.
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    And ordinarily, there
    are limited, if any,
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    promotion possibilities.
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    So you're on that side track.
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    Well, maybe you can
    get back on again.
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    But your male colleagues who
    didn't do that are way ahead,
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    and there's this whole
    cohort of young, eager men
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    and women coming along too.
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    So that's just one of the
    turns of the labyrinth,
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    is how the family
    responsibilities
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    are managed by a couple.
Title:
The "Glass Ceiling" Is Misleading
Description:

The idea that there is a persistent prejudice against women that keeps them from top roles in society is out of sync with reality.

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Video Language:
English
Duration:
07:15

English subtitles

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