The author of this article said she had received many emails from women, asking her if she really felt there was a glass ceiling for women.
She refers to a new term that two authors feel fit the issue better, labyrinth; meaning a place constructed of intricate passageways. I also feel that is a better term than glass ceiling. Glass ceiling indicates that it is a dead end and there is no way to get past the obstacle. The term labyrinth, gives hope. It acknowledges that it will be challenging, but that you just have to find your way through the "passageways".
The author also provides a few tips in regards to the glass ceiling: don't use it as an excuse, create a career strategic plan, do your research, and quit thinking about a glass ceiling. In the article, she goes more in depth.
http://blogs.forbes.com/work-in-progress/2010/11/22/is-there-really-a-glass-ceiling-for-women/
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Have Women Shattered the Glass Ceiling?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-04-15-column15_ST1_N.htm
This article gives a few statistics about women and where we stand today in the business world. It was interesting to me to read about how there were only 34 women out of 776 students at Harvard in 1973! The number of women in school and businesses have definitely increased! It has not increased to the point where we outnumber men but I think that it will definitely get there at one point. Maybe I just have high hopes because we still have that glass ceiling both in schools and corporations.
In the article it states that in Fortune 500 companies women occupy 15% of board seats and are 3% of CEOs. This made me think of the College of Business here at ISU. I realize that although there are a lot of women in the State Farm Hall of Business building the men still outnumber us. There have been occasions where there are only three women in a class of 25 students! I think that as more women get engaged in the business world the easier it will be for us to overcome the glass ceiling!
This article gives a few statistics about women and where we stand today in the business world. It was interesting to me to read about how there were only 34 women out of 776 students at Harvard in 1973! The number of women in school and businesses have definitely increased! It has not increased to the point where we outnumber men but I think that it will definitely get there at one point. Maybe I just have high hopes because we still have that glass ceiling both in schools and corporations.
In the article it states that in Fortune 500 companies women occupy 15% of board seats and are 3% of CEOs. This made me think of the College of Business here at ISU. I realize that although there are a lot of women in the State Farm Hall of Business building the men still outnumber us. There have been occasions where there are only three women in a class of 25 students! I think that as more women get engaged in the business world the easier it will be for us to overcome the glass ceiling!
Monday, February 14, 2011
Cracking the Male Code of Office Behavior
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/jobs/06pre.html?scp=4&sq=glass%20ceiling%20effect%20&st=cse
In this article the author, Shaunti Feldhahn, shares what she has learned from years of research about mens perceptions of women that can effect them in the workplace. One of the major findings she came across was that men are able to turn off their emotions while doing business. Women on the other hand take things very personally and can even become emotional over things that take place in the work place. Shaunti says that these actions make women appear less business-savvy or experienced, which can put them at a disadvantage. The article also talks about how women who ask questions of a man in a group setting make the man feel challenged even though the women feels that they were asking a reasonable question. By calling men out in the workplace women may make them want to avoid us. A last discovery the the author made was that sometimes women try to hard to act like men and this does not work in their favor and can become distracting. In chapter five, the situational leadership style suggest that leaders should change their style of leadership to fit the followers. Do you think women should change their work style to accomodate the different types of people they work with?
In this article the author, Shaunti Feldhahn, shares what she has learned from years of research about mens perceptions of women that can effect them in the workplace. One of the major findings she came across was that men are able to turn off their emotions while doing business. Women on the other hand take things very personally and can even become emotional over things that take place in the work place. Shaunti says that these actions make women appear less business-savvy or experienced, which can put them at a disadvantage. The article also talks about how women who ask questions of a man in a group setting make the man feel challenged even though the women feels that they were asking a reasonable question. By calling men out in the workplace women may make them want to avoid us. A last discovery the the author made was that sometimes women try to hard to act like men and this does not work in their favor and can become distracting. In chapter five, the situational leadership style suggest that leaders should change their style of leadership to fit the followers. Do you think women should change their work style to accomodate the different types of people they work with?
Saturday, February 12, 2011
One Woman's Quest at Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling
http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/innovation/article/glass-ceiling-breaker-adriane-brown-katie-morell
After reading many different articles, I thought this was an amazing breakthrough for one woman, and motivation for many others. The article states facts about her childhood, goals, and accomplishments. Adriane Brown is the president and COO of Intellectual Ventures and on the list of women to watch in Fortune's Magazine. She states that women need a voice and their work needs to speak the loudest. Shattering the glass ceiling is not only challenging for women in general, let alone African American women. Adriane shows that it can be done, and more women should strive to have a voice.
After reading many different articles, I thought this was an amazing breakthrough for one woman, and motivation for many others. The article states facts about her childhood, goals, and accomplishments. Adriane Brown is the president and COO of Intellectual Ventures and on the list of women to watch in Fortune's Magazine. She states that women need a voice and their work needs to speak the loudest. Shattering the glass ceiling is not only challenging for women in general, let alone African American women. Adriane shows that it can be done, and more women should strive to have a voice.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Obstacles Women face Entering the Corporate World
I think that most of the time the glass ceiling is present for women because of the precautions we take, for example in the article is speaks about women having to cover all the information before taking a risk, our struggle to delegate, and the difference between our verbal and nonverbal language compared to men. All these factors impose a struggle for us women to compete against men in the corporate world. For the most part I think this is why there are more men leaders than there are women.
Women focus too much on the maternal aspect of things, as far as having a high concern for the people and not so much for the productivity. I think that this is why it is harder for women to compete with men. However, I think that eventually we will have more women leaders than we have in the past, don't know if more then men. What do you all think?
America Alvarez
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Women's success at a glance
http://http://www.videtteonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=33753:womens-success-at-a-glance&catid=44:viewpointeditorials&Itemid=56
I found this article in the Daily Vidette last week and thought that it would raise some interesting questions for our blog. The article talks about the issue that college graduates are facing with trying to find jobs. Many people are deciding to attend graduate school because they have been unable to find work. The article argues that this may not be helpful to women because graduate school will only cost them more money. When these women graduate from graduate school they will also most likely be at the age where getting married and starting a family is important to them. This may put women at a disadvantage for getting jobs because employeers might rather hire men so they do not have to worry about women job candidates leaving for maternity leave.
Do you guys think that women miss out on opportunities for advancement in the work place because they have to leave to have and raise their children? Do you think this may be the reason for the glass ceiling effect?
I found this article in the Daily Vidette last week and thought that it would raise some interesting questions for our blog. The article talks about the issue that college graduates are facing with trying to find jobs. Many people are deciding to attend graduate school because they have been unable to find work. The article argues that this may not be helpful to women because graduate school will only cost them more money. When these women graduate from graduate school they will also most likely be at the age where getting married and starting a family is important to them. This may put women at a disadvantage for getting jobs because employeers might rather hire men so they do not have to worry about women job candidates leaving for maternity leave.
Do you guys think that women miss out on opportunities for advancement in the work place because they have to leave to have and raise their children? Do you think this may be the reason for the glass ceiling effect?
The real statistics of women in the workplace Blog post 2) by: Kelli Hall
This is a youtube video that I found that looks at some real statistics about women in the workplace and some reasons that could contribute to their low numbers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEBiIFHQqfE
I thought that this video was great to start with because it looks at some of the real statistics of women in the workplace. Only 16% of board members in most companies are composed of women and there are still 10% of businesses that don't have women on their boards at all.
I think that many people believe that The Glass Ceiling effect is very minimal now because there are so many more women that are going to college and entering the workforce. We see this especially at ISU where the ratio of women to men is much higher.
This video suggests that this is because of many peoples mentoring selections. It is easier for most men to build relationships with other men especially in the workplace. So this makes it easier for a man to ask for his mentor to go beyond guidance and ask to advocate and speak up for him to help build the corporate ladder. Women are set in ways of thinking that is they work hard thy will get noticed but in this fast paced world women need to be more vocal and clear with their goals in hopes of showing that they are just as capable of doing these high level management jobs.
I also think that there is still an idea of if a man and a woman become close and have a close relationship such as a mentor or other types of business relationships it is looked at as sexual or an unfit relationship for the workplace.
There are still several reasons that go into why this effect is still going on and that there is a long way to go before the workplace really will be 50/50.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEBiIFHQqfE
I thought that this video was great to start with because it looks at some of the real statistics of women in the workplace. Only 16% of board members in most companies are composed of women and there are still 10% of businesses that don't have women on their boards at all.
I think that many people believe that The Glass Ceiling effect is very minimal now because there are so many more women that are going to college and entering the workforce. We see this especially at ISU where the ratio of women to men is much higher.
This video suggests that this is because of many peoples mentoring selections. It is easier for most men to build relationships with other men especially in the workplace. So this makes it easier for a man to ask for his mentor to go beyond guidance and ask to advocate and speak up for him to help build the corporate ladder. Women are set in ways of thinking that is they work hard thy will get noticed but in this fast paced world women need to be more vocal and clear with their goals in hopes of showing that they are just as capable of doing these high level management jobs.
I also think that there is still an idea of if a man and a woman become close and have a close relationship such as a mentor or other types of business relationships it is looked at as sexual or an unfit relationship for the workplace.
There are still several reasons that go into why this effect is still going on and that there is a long way to go before the workplace really will be 50/50.
Men or Women: Who Is The Better Leader?
This article talks about the various comparisons between men and women and who society feels is a better leader. There are even results to a characteristics survey that asks the public whether or not, for example, they believe men or women are more stubborn? More decisive? The results are rather interesting.
The article attempts to understand why so few women have made it to the highest levels of political or corporate leadership, stating a few reasons being because of gender discrimination, resistance to change, and even the “old boys club” excuse. However, the public or people surveyed never state that women lack what it takes to be a good leader. In fact, seven of the eight leadership traits measured in one of the surveys rate women as either better than or equal to men. So then why the drastic difference in leadership roles between the sexes???
In fact, the characteristics survey shows that people find men to be more arrogant, more ambitious, and more stubborn and women are showed to be more emotional, compassionate, creative, honest, and outgoing. And both genders are said to be equally intelligent and hardworking. I may be naturally biased by being a woman, but if I had to choose a leader based on this survey, the right choice seems pretty apparent.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/932/men-or-women-whos-the-better-leader
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