GLASS CEILING

A glass ceiling is a metaphor used to represent an invisible barrier that keeps a given demographic (typically applied to women and minorities) from rising beyond a level in a hierarchy. Such barriers exist owing to implicit prejudice on the basis of age, ethnicity, political or religious affiliation, and/or gender.

For example: In her current role she broke through the glass ceiling as the first woman to reach senior management level in the company.

The first person to use the phrase was Marilyn Loden, during a 1978 speech. The concept of the glass ceiling was later popularised at a Conference of the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press led by Katherine Lawrence of Hewlett-packard. This was part of an ongoing discussion of a clash between written policy of promotion versus action opportunities for women at HP.

The Oxford dictionary notes that the first use of the term was in 1984, in Adweek: “Women have reached a certain point—i call it the glass ceiling. They’re in the top of middle management and they’re stopping and getting stuck. There isn’t enough room for all those women at the top.”

In 1984 Gay Bryant used the term in a chapter of the book The Working Woman Report: Succeeding in Business in the 1980s.

Later it was used in a 1986 Wall Street Journal article on barriers to women in high corporate positions.

Since becoming commonplace in contemporary language it has been applied to obstacles encountered in any field. For example, this news from the Daily Telegraph, 1994: “After several spirited assaults, the FT-SE’S

3200 glass ceiling finally gave way yesterday, allowing the index to close sharply higher after a day of drifting.”