what is the glass ceiling 
the term glass ceiling refers to a metaphorical invisible barrier that prevents certain individuals from being promoted to managerial and executive level positions within an organization or industry the phrase is commonly used to describe the difficulties faced by women and minorities when trying to move to higher roles in a male dominated corporate hierarchy the barriers are most often unwritten meaning that these individuals are more likely to be restricted from advancing through accepted norms and implicit biases rather than defined corporate policies understanding the glass ceilingmarilyn loden first coined the phrase glass ceiling while speaking as a panelist at the 1978 women s exposition in new york as a fill in for her employer s only female executive loden was invited to discuss how women were to blame for the barriers preventing them from advancing in their careers instead she spoke about deeper ignored issues that historically kept women from occupying positions of authority the glass ceiling 1this concept was later popularized in a 1986 wall street journal article discussing the corporate hierarchy and how invisible barriers seemed to prevent women from advancing in their careers past a certain level in 2015 the publication reported quoting gay bryant former editor of working woman magazine that the concept goes back to the 1970s and may have originated with two women at hewlett packard 4 the concept expanded in more contemporary times to include minorities in addition to women the equality gap varies between countries and may be driven by cultural stances against women and minority groups from participating in the workforce companies in the united states have responded to the equality gap by focusing on measures to increase diversity this includes hiring personnel specifically tasked with ensuring that women and minorities see improved representation in management level positions by focusing on policies that reduce or eliminate the glass ceiling companies can ensure that the most qualified candidates hold decision making positions in 2023 women accounted for 46 9 of the labor force in the u s but when it came to chief executive positions women held only 30 6 of these roles and 85 8 of chief executives identified as white according to the bureau of labor statistics bls 2research shows that diverse groups are more successful in making decisions than homogeneous ones which has the effect of signaling to companies that eliminating the glass ceiling can positively affect their bottom line 5history of the glass ceilingthe u s department of labor launched the glass ceiling commission in 1991 in response to the growing concern over barriers preventing women and minorities from advancing 3 it was charged with identifying the barriers that exist and policies that companies adopted or could undertake to increase diversity at managerial and executive levels the commission found that qualified women and minorities were being denied the opportunity to compete for or win decision making positions it also found that the perceptions of both employees and employers often included stereotypes that held women and minorities in a negative light 6