In today’s world, people see gender equality as one of the most important factors that the policy and rules people make is reasonable or not, and sometimes this way of thinking drives people to a misunderstanding area. Glass ceiling is one of it. You can see this hot topic in newspaper, magazines, essays, but does the glass ceiling---gender equality in the workplace really exist?
A book called “A SOLID INVESTMENT: MAKING FULL USE OF THE A SOLID INVESTMENT: NATION’S HUMAN CAPITAL” written by Federal Glass Ceiling Commission defined that “A glass ceiling is a political term used to describe "the unseen, yet unbreachable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements.” 《Federal Glass Ceiling Commission P.4.》 Do companies really keep women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder and regardless of their qualifications and achievements? Lots of people think that we not true including me. Nowadays women didn’t prioritize to their job like men did, especially in top positions of the company, because these jobs are required thousands of time and hard work, but women prioritize into family and friends than job and they can’t do in both ways. The professional career coach Marty Nemko’s Essay “The real reason so few women are in the boardroom” states that “Having been career coach to 2000 professional clients, 2/3 female, I know that more women than men prioritize work/ life balance, wanting more time for family, home, friends, and recreation.”《Nemko 731》 How can women pay all the attention in jobs when most of them have to taking care of their family and children? It is argued by feminist activists that the social conditioning by “the male hegemony” focus women to taking care of family and children. But literally that's not true, Nemko quotes Steven Rhoades’s book “Taking sex differences seriously” in his essay that “after study and study indicating that the main reason most women want ample family time is their biological drive to have children and be the primary family caregiver.”《Nemko 731》 From ancient time to today, no matter what nations, most of the women are taking care of their family also support this study result. Thus, one of the most important factors that women don't have high hire rate in the top position is because female biologically desire to prioritize on their family and life-balance, instead of their job.
From Nemko’s personal experience we can infer that women desire to spend more time on family and children, but compare to women, men can work longer and even harder than women. Daniel Wesley, a writer from Visual Economics, show a study on his blog about the working week around global that: “In the U.S., 85.8 percent of males and 66.5 percent of females work more than 40 hours per week.”《Wesley, The State of the 40-Hour Workweek》 it indicates that women didn't work as much as men did. Meanwhile, Nemko agree with this point of view in his essay that “A key reason men earn more than women is number of hours worked.”《Nemko 730》 This is another explanation that glass ceiling don't really exist. Although work longer doesn't mean better, but if two employees have the same quality of finishing jobs, the employer will hire the one who will work longer and devote himself or herself in the position without hesitation. That’s why men get advantages in their job promotion or employment, but not because women are struggling in glass ceiling.
For these days, the employment of men and women is out of balance because of glass ceiling. Women seem like struggling in getting jobs because of glass ceiling. Some politicians and sociologists suggest that improve the rate of women employment which will promote gender equality. Lisa Quast, a founder and CEO of Career Woman, quotes Dr. Hakim’s thought in her essay “Debunking myths of gender equality” she states that “Dr. Hakim uses a study by the International Labour Office 《ILO》 and several other academic studies that show raising female employment has actually led to a reduction in gender quality. Because higher levels of female employment are associated with female-dominated service-type occupations.” 《Quast 735》 In this study, we found out that improve women’s hire rate, can only help women to get into the job that they good at like service-type occupations. However, it didn't improve the way that they want, and also do harm to the job balance, the economy market and the workplace. So no matter how many women has been hired, there are still a large number of people can’t satisfied. This is not about glass ceiling, it is about people do what they adept.
People always use “glass ceiling” as a reason to explain that women has a lower hire rate on the top executive position in companies. It seems like the truth, because only 11% of Fortune 500 senior executives are women. However, if you looking for a job, why do you think the employer should hire you. The standard answer is you are suitable for this job. So it is about suitable or not, and not about gender equality. That’s an example that gender equality gives us some misunderstanding. Because not all the thing has to be equal, everyone is different, everyone has their own characteristics, and everyone good at different kind of things. If you say they are few women work in the top position of companies are not equal, but why so many women work in hospital as a nurse but not man, is that equal? Yes, because most of the women are good at nursing. Therefore, people should do things that they are good at, but don't judge the gender. Because people do different things in the world that make it run in a better way and make it a better place.
Equality is very important, but not everything has its own equality. The job employments don't have its equality as well, because it is full of competition, and “Glass Ceiling” is one of the thoughts that people try to use gender equality to justice things in a wrong way. Therefore, glass ceiling doesn't exist, it is people’s misunderstanding.
Work Cited Page:
“Solid Investments: Making Full Use of the Nation's Human Capital” -- Federal Glass Ceiling Commission, Page 4
“The real reason so few women are in the boardroom” – Marty Nemko, Page 730, 731
“Debunking myths of gender equality”-- Lisa Quast, Page 735
The State of the 40-Hour Workweek -- Daniel Wesley
http://visualeconomics.creditloan.com/the-state-of-the-40-hour-workweek/#ixzz33c26Bwlt