Glass ceiling
From Geek Feminism Wiki
The Glass ceiling is a term for a common pattern of women's progress in career paths, that women are found clustered at the lower levels of the path even though there is no formal barrier preventing their promotion to higher levels (hence, the glass ceiling, the one that you don't see until you bang your head on it).
[edit] General issues
Issues that have been identified in career paths that contribute to a lack of seniority on the part of women:
- recent entry of women into that career
- expectations of long work hours for seniority conflicting with motherhood, caring or social obligations of women
- high value being placed on assertive, domineering social styles for leadership positions together with social dislike of women with those traits
- unstated expectations of male-associated hobbies (golf, for example) and out-of-work networking
- women not being aware that many career opportunities require requests and negotiation, or not being trained to request advantage for herself (see Women Don't Ask)
[edit] Geek-specific issues
Issues for women in geek careers include:
- the high value placed on self-education, which is more possible for young single people (at least, wealthier ones) like high schoolers and undergraduates than for women entering the career late (even as late as university)
- an even greater tendency to reward assertive and domineering social styles than many other communities
- even notionally entry level jobs or courses can require some years of self-education such as Open Source programming
- the high value placed on having career-related or at least geeky hobbies
- networking opportunities like technical conferences are time-consuming and expensive (even compared with golf)
- persistent visible discrimination and harassment causes women to seek other equally intellectually challenging careers with less anti-women sentiment and behaviour than some geek careers
