The Glass Ceiling

Limits to Women's Advancement in the Workplace

Abstract

Regardless of the development level and discrimination sensitivity of a society, some forms of discrimination still seem not to have disappeared, and they apparently affect various groups of people. The form of discrimination to be discussed in this paper is of the type which is manifested at the workplace and involves only women. We are dealing with a form of discrimination which has been coined »glass ceiling«, a term used to describe a situation in which many women find themselves in the course of their carreers. The »glass ceiling« refers to the upper limit to which a woman is allowed to advance and which, if it is to be crossed, requires much more time and effort than it would a man. In the first section, the author explains the precise form of discrimination being discussed, and in the second section focuses on the basis of this phenomenon and the most common justifications for this type of activity within a corporation. In the third section the author draws our attention to the moral incorrectness of such discrimination. The conclusion describes some actual examples of impediment to advancement.