A Study on Glass Ceiling Practices in Business Organizations:Barriers to achieving Gender Equality

Abstract

Female employees have for a long time have been kept devoid of their due. They are considered as inefficient managers. This notion prevents the business organizations to promote female managers to the upper rung of the organizational hierarchy. This practice of preventing female employees reach the top position of the organizations is generally referred to as ‗Glass Ceiling'. In other terms, ―Glass ceiling‖ refers to mean ―the unseen, yet unreachable barrier that keeps women from rising to the upper rung of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements‖. To be more specific, the connotation is one of the most compelling metaphors for analyzing inequalities between men and women at workplaces. ―Glass ceiling‖ comes under the category of gender discrimination meted out to the women folk in the economic arena, as the practice works as a barricading to give women their due credit in an industrial set up. Glass ceiling serves as a barrier to achieving gender equality. The present paper will try to make a precise and honest effort to explain the practice or phenomenon of glass ceiling as an instrument of gender discrimination, various expressions of gender discrimination, and its impact upon the female working force. The paper will also try to suggest remedies to breaking the notion of glass ceiling in business organizations.