Abstract
This chapter underscores issues of gender in hiring, training, promotion, and the proverbial glass ceiling in the workplace. Mayock explores here the language of job advertisements and of job interviewers, non-verbal signs communicated to potential employees, and the availability of and access to training. In addition, the concept of the “good fit” in hiring and promoting and the glass ceiling are analyzed through the lens of gender and other intersectional categories (perceived race, national origin, etc.).
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- 1.
See Adam Grant and Sheryl Sandberg’s four-part series on women at work in The New York Times (2014–2015).
- 2.
Catherine Rampell’s 2009 article in The New York Times points out that women’s potential to surpass men in the job force “has less to do with gender equality than with where the ax is falling,” stating that the recession has affected first male-dominated industries, such as manufacturing and construction. Rampell adds, “A deep and prolonged recession, therefore, may change not only household budgets and habits; it may also challenge longstanding gender roles.”
- 3.
See Claudia Goldin’s “A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter” for suggestions for tangible change in the labor market to effect tangible change in the gender pay gap.
- 4.
Boraas and Rodgers conclude the following: “We find that, for men, the most important measurable factor in each year is the industry of employment as opposed to personal characteristics such as education, age, and region of residence. It is well known that particular industries pay more than others, and our results show that these industries, on average, have higher concentrations of men. The opposite occurs for women. Education and age are the most important factors for explaining the wage- and percent-female relationship. If education and age capture personal preferences that influence occupational choice, then solely focusing on expanding occupational choice will result in a small narrowing of the gender wage gap. This is because, as shown in our Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions, even after we add the concentration of women in an occupation to the model, the overall gender wage gap is still largely unexplained” (14).
- 5.
Dean W.H. Knight uses National Association of Law Placement statistics from 2005 to support the following statement: “According to the National Association of Law Placement (‘NALP’), men and women are employed overall at the same rate after graduation. Relatively fewer women enter private practice, with more entering government and public interest organizations compared with men. Women who do enter private practice tend to leave at each benchmark in their professional lives in greater numbers than men do. For the most recent year for which NALP has data [2005], women constituted nearly 48% of summer associates, 44% of law firm associates, but only 17% of partners. These statistical disparities in the trajectory of women from law school to partner suggest that the glass ceiling remains a major barrier for women in the profession” (470–471). See also The Chronicle of Higher Education’s PDF compilation titled “The Gender Divide in Academe. Insights on Retaining More Academic Women.”
- 6.
In “How the ‘Snow-Woman Effect’ Slows Women’s Progress,” Mary Ann Mason provides the following statistics regarding this stagnation of progress in glass ceiling arenas: “It is not surprising that we still find few women at the top. More than 20 years ago, The Wall Street Journal used the phrase ‘glass ceiling’ to describe the apparent barriers that prevent women from reaching the highest leadership positions. In 1995 the government’s Glass Ceiling Commission reported that women held 45.7 percent of American’s jobs and received more than half of the university master’s degrees. Yet 95 percent of senior managers were men, and female managers’ earnings were, on average, a scant 68 percent of their male counterparts’. A decade later, in 2005, women accounted for 46.5 percent of America’s work force and represented less than 8 percent of its top managers (although at large Fortune 500 companies the figure is slightly higher). Female managers’ earnings now average 72 percent of their male colleagues’ wages. Since 1998, the figures have stagnated. Over all, the trajectory is not promising” (Chronicle; web).
- 7.
See the AAUP’s January–February, 2015, issue of Academe for a thorough history of the organization’s “Committee W,” the Committee on Women in the Academic Profession. The AAUP will celebrate its centennial in 2017. The lengthy, informative article covers Committee W’s history, along with a summary of the states of salary discrimination, family issues, widespread contingency, legislative efforts, retirement and health care, and sexual harassment and assault. Author Mary W. Gray concludes: “Over the AAUP’s first century, women have made enormous gains in graduate education, in medicine, and in the law. This makes the scant progress for academic women in hiring, pay, promotion, and tenure discouraging. Lobbying higher education institutions, Congress, and state legislatures to protect individual and institutional academic freedom while prohibiting discrimination is a task for Committee W and the AAUP in general in its second century. Perhaps by the committee’s own centennial in 2018, a few small miracles will occur, aided by the diligent, devoted efforts of faculty women and men” (52).
- 8.
Mason adds, “Most women, it seems, cannot have it all—tenure and a family—while most men can” (“Pyramid”). In 2007, the EEOC amended Title VII text by adding the prohibition of discrimination against employees with caregiving responsibilities. The background information recognizes the following: “The prohibition against sex discrimination under Title VII has made it easier for women to enter the labor force. Since Congress enacted Title VII, the proportion of women who work outside the home has significantly increased,2 and women now comprise nearly half of the U.S. labor force.3 The rise has been most dramatic for mothers of young children, who are almost twice as likely to be employed today as were their counterparts 30 years ago.4 The total amount of time that couples with children spend working also has increased.5 Income from women’s employment is important to the economic security of many families, particularly among lower-paid workers, and accounts for over one-third of the income in families where both parents work.6 Despite these changes, women continue to be most families’ primary caregivers7” (http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/caregiving.html).
- 9.
In her article in The Chronicle of Higher Education titled, “Title IX Includes Maternal Discrimination,” Mary Ann Mason states that, “President Obama should be aware that Title IX does not just cover blatant gender discrimination—such as bias that women are not as competent as men in science or math. It also protects women against sex discrimination on the basis of marital, parental, or family status, and on the basis of pregnancy. Those provisions come into play over the issue of retaining female scientists in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, the STEM fields.”
- 10.
See Deirdre Royster’s Race and the Invisible Hand: How White Networks Exclude Black Men from Blue-Collar Jobs (2003) for a nuanced analysis of the work dynamics for Black men.
- 11.
Over the last several years, the institution where I work has struggled more publicly with its association with Robert E. Lee and, in particular, with the question of flying Confederate flags and whether or not to formally recognize Martin Luther King Day.
- 12.
See The New York Times Editorial Board’s recognition of Equal Pay Day in its piece from April 14, 2015.
- 13.
Mary Ann Mason tells of the tricky advice that she provided to a female colleague in her law school: “‘Speak low and slowly, but smile frequently,’ I replied. This advice (which did help her next presentation) was based on my observation that women must adhere to a narrow band of behavior in order to be effective in mostly male settings. Women who speak too fast, or in too shrill a tone, are overlooked. Women who act in a highly assertive manner, which might be acceptable for men, are attended to, but not invited back. Women must be friendly, but they cannot be too friendly or a sexual connotation may be inferred. After meetings, women are frequently marginalized when they are left out of job-related social networking” (“How the ‘Snow-Woman’ Effect Slows Women’s Progress”). This is probably good advice for someone in the short term, but in the long term, it may encourage too much of a gendered performance that simply adds to and supports some higher-ups’ already overly developed gender schemas. In another advice column of The Chronicle of Higher Education, “Ms. Mentor” responds to a tenure-track woman faculty member’s plea for advice about a dean making unwelcome overtures by telling her to pretend not to hear the dean, pretend to misunderstand him, be mildly apologetic, and say “thank you” a lot (Ms. Mentor, “I’m OK, He’s Sleazy”). These half-measures, again, seek short-term compromise and protection but ignore the long-term damage of not confronting matters head-on.
References
Editorial Board, The New York Times. 2015. Women still earn a lot less than men. The New York Times, The Opinion Pages, 14 Apr 2015. Accessed 14 Apr 2015. Web.
Gray, Mary W. 2015. The AAUP and women. Academe (January–February):46–52.
Kerber, Linda K. 2010. Equity for women—Still. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 29 Aug 2010. Accessed 2 Sept 2010. Web.
Kristof, Nicholas D. 2010. Don’t write off men just yet. The New York Times, 21 July 2010. Accessed 22 July 2010. Web.
Rampell, Catherine. 2009. As layoffs surge, women may pass men in job force. The New York Times, 6 Feb 2009. Accessed 6 Feb 2009. Web.
Royster, Deidre. 2003. Race and the invisible hand: How white networks exclude black men from blue-collar jobs. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Print.
Valian, Virginia. 1999. Why so slow? The advancement of women. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Print.
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Mayock, E. (2016). The “Glass Ceiling” and Hiring, Training, and Promotion. In: Gender Shrapnel in the Academic Workplace. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50830-0_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50830-0_8
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