The Glass Ceiling

As of 2017, women make-up just over 50 percent of the population, and yet we still haven't reached equality in either pay rate or job status. Women earn 60 percent of all four-year college degrees and 60 percent of all Master's degrees. Law degrees? We earn 47 percent of MBA's and 48 percent of all medical degrees. and 47 percent of other specialized Master's. We comprise 47 percent of the general workforce and 49 percent of the college-educated workforce, yet we are poorly represented in the upper echelons of nearly every possible field. The massive progress of the last few decades of the 20th century has all but come to a standstill. As of 2011, we hold only nine percent of top management positions in S & P 1500 companies. As of 2016, women hold just 18 percent of S&P 1500 board seats.They are just 25 percent of executive and senior officials and managers, 9.5 percent of top earners, and 6 percent of CEOs in S&P 500 companies. Women don't fare better in law or medicine. Although females make up 45 percent of lawyers, we only make-up 22 percent of law firm partners. In medicine, we represent 37 percent of all physicians and surgeons, but only 16 percent of medical school deans. In television and film, the results are equally dismal. Women accounted for just 17 percent of all the directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors who worked on the top-grossing 250 domestic films of 2016. Many films are designed to get female viewers and yet they have only a small hand in creating them. Women were just 26 percent of all off-screen talent on broadcast networks, cable, and streaming programs during the 2015-16 season. Women of color were only 3.9 percent of the executive or senior-level officials and managers and 0.4 percent of CEOs in the companies that produce our entertainment. In 2017, after the departure of Ursula Burns as CEO of Xerox Corp., there were no African American women heading Fortune 500 companies. As recently as 2013, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies had no women of color as board directors at all. So what can be done to eliminate the ceiling?

First of all, the problem may stem from a basic prejudice that women take time off for pregnancies and childhood illnesses. Flex time should be available for all—men and women alike. Resumés should be gender-free so that the person's sex is unknown. This would guarantee bias removal. The gender gap is so pervasive that France recently instituted quotas to ensure at least 40 percent of boardroom positions are held by women, following similar legislation in Norway, Spain, and Iceland. What about us? Maybe if we had more female representatives in government, we could pass such legislation. We don't need statistics to know how women fare in politics in this country. However, women are often their own worst enemies. How many of us do not demand what is our due? How many women voted for Trump because they see women of strength as "bitches?" How many of us classify female bosses the same way? The consciousness of women has to be raised, again! We burned bras back in the 60s, we need to burn a figurative bra today. If women ever decide to get up and band together by refusing to report to lower-level jobs than their male counterparts, the world of business would grind to a halt. Women have to stop thinking of women in power as "bitches" and start seeing themselves as women of power. This century could be seen as the century of female empowerment. We didn't get off on a good foot by electing the most anti-female president in history. It is imperative that women stop hating women if we are ever to climb up that ladder to the floor above the glass ceiling.

All stats were taken from "Women’s Leadership by the Numbers" by Judith Warner and Danielle Corley Posted on May 21, 2017, 11:59 PM.