Women in Management
Running head: WOMEN IN MANAGEMENT: A SOCIO-CULTURAL CHALLENGE
Abstract
Historically, women have been facing many socio-cultural factors in order to be integrated to a world principally designed by men and for men. One way to describe this situation has been called the Glass Ceiling, by definition an invisible but real barrier founded on attitudinal or organizational bias in the workforce that prevents minorities and women from advancing to leadership positions. This paper gives an overview of the principal reasons for this behavior based on previous studies, analyzes some approaches to handle them as well as possible actions that allow women and other minorities smash the glass-ceiling effects, and finally, it suggests some directions for future investigations.
Women in Management: A Socio-cultural Challenge Anna Garlin Spencer (1913) in her book Woman 's Share in Social Culture said: “The failure of women to produce genius of the first rank in most of the supreme forms of human effort has been used to block the way of all women of talent and ambition for intellectual achievement in a manner that would be amusingly absurd were it not so monstrously unjust and socially harmful” (p. 50). This quote is a brief way to expose a reality that, although it has been changing gradually, is still causing delays in women’s uphill journey to the top of the organizations’ management. Some people could argue that this is a simple feminist perception and support their idea on the success cases in which women have actually reached top positions, but it is evident the inequality that women still experience based on socio-cultural prejudices. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Web shows that although women are more likely than men to work in professional and related occupations, they are not as well represented in the higher paying job groups within this broad category. In 2008, only 9 percent of female professionals were employed in the high-paying computer
Abstract
Historically, women have been facing many socio-cultural factors in order to be integrated to a world principally designed by men and for men. One way to describe this situation has been called the Glass Ceiling, by definition an invisible but real barrier founded on attitudinal or organizational bias in the workforce that prevents minorities and women from advancing to leadership positions. This paper gives an overview of the principal reasons for this behavior based on previous studies, analyzes some approaches to handle them as well as possible actions that allow women and other minorities smash the glass-ceiling effects, and finally, it suggests some directions for future investigations.
Women in Management: A Socio-cultural Challenge Anna Garlin Spencer (1913) in her book Woman 's Share in Social Culture said: “The failure of women to produce genius of the first rank in most of the supreme forms of human effort has been used to block the way of all women of talent and ambition for intellectual achievement in a manner that would be amusingly absurd were it not so monstrously unjust and socially harmful” (p. 50). This quote is a brief way to expose a reality that, although it has been changing gradually, is still causing delays in women’s uphill journey to the top of the organizations’ management. Some people could argue that this is a simple feminist perception and support their idea on the success cases in which women have actually reached top positions, but it is evident the inequality that women still experience based on socio-cultural prejudices. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Web shows that although women are more likely than men to work in professional and related occupations, they are not as well represented in the higher paying job groups within this broad category. In 2008, only 9 percent of female professionals were employed in the high-paying computer