Since Hillary Clinton's entire political trajectory has so obviously depended on her husband, she would have reinforced the sexist notion that a woman needs a man to rise: she would merely have extended the height of the ceiling rather than shattered it, and perpetuated the foggy conspiracy-idea behind the glass ceiling metaphor. Which is probably just how she would have liked matters to stand because she could have gloried in herself all the more against the background of such a supposed conspiracy.

Rather than thinking of a glass ceiling as the product of a male conspiracy, I tend to think of it more as the societal status quo, and the talk of breaking through it as a challenge to that status quo. Are men more routinely in positions of power because they collude to keep out women, or because that's what we're all used to and comfortable with? I tend to think it's more the latter.

Roy,

This is a good article. Implicitly embedded in it is something that I have recognized for some time. Which is that nomenclature drives the frame of this issue.

Why is there a glass ceiling? Because of the "Mommy Track". And what is the "Mommy Track"? It's the life path women take when they "sacrifice" their careers for motherhood.

There are the loaded terms right there that skew the dialog. Mommy Track and sacrifice. Women don't sacrifice anything. They CHOOSE to stay home and take care of their kids. (A great and noble thing BTW.) And that choice is not without benefit or value. Mom's who stay at home are enriched by nurturing their children full time and self-satisfied to watch them grow into thriving, good valued young people.

Someone could just as well create a term of art called the "Daddy Track". With the father hitting up against the "Home & Hearth" ceiling. I.e., he's busting his hump 60 hours a week and doesn't get to spend any quality time with his kids.

In fact anybody who is less aggressive professionally in order the spend time on things they enjoy hits a "ceiling". It could be hobbies, charity work, whatever. But the point is that they are making a RATIONAL TRADE. And rationally accept the limitations their choice places on their professional advancement.

Once the vocabulary is properly centered on choice rather than sacrifice, a lot of the glass ceiling talk would go away.

OBTW, most people (men and women) don't have careers. They have jobs. The glass ceiling for them is an impediment to managing a department at a Wal-Mart store, not running Wal-Mart.

I have had three "career" jobs and each of them were incapable of paying differently to someone based on gender. Of course due to the subjectivity, biasness in employer attitudes can be argued continuously as a fall back point. I find it interesting that the poorest of the poor, shortest lived and homeless are a certain gender, yet there doesn't seem to be an initiative to raise the "bottom" of society to a certain level, yet there is an initiative to raise the upper/middle class even higher. As much as the polarization of wealth and standards of living are viewed as wrong, it seems to be a focus to do so.

Yes, there really is a group of elderly men in white robes that meet in secret, otherwise known as "The Patriachy." They conspire to benefit men by keeping women down. And their latest venture is a factory that produces "glass ceilings" to be used only in areas of businesses where women work.

For more information on how you can be a part of "The Patriarchy," please contact:

patriarchy_central@yahoo.com (to receive our regular edicts)
male_privileges@hotmail.com (for the Male Privileges™ program)