Discrimination and Affirmative Action (Glass Ceiling)
The paper will look at how women have for years been faced with artificial barriers as they try to advance into senior management positions. It will critically assess how efforts to include them equally into company leadership has hampered their economic gains and how there is still a long way to go before realization of their efforts. The argument that will prevail in this case is how this discrimination largely known as 'glass ceiling' has affected not only women competitiveness but largely affected the competitiveness of businesses, companies and even governments the world over.
The glass ceiling, is it a fact or just an illusion? Glass ceiling is a word that is used to describe barriers that exists for women, when it comes to getting promoted into the upper echelons of a company. Indeed it purely exists and it affects largely the women and also the minority in the society. It resultants is that it has made women remain a step behind their counterpart the man who has received all the recognition of promotion despite same level of education and achievements. 'Barriers that hinder the career advancement of women are varied and complex. For instance for a company like KBR, a woman may not be considered appropriate because of her feminine body and may need for men who can do the construction work. Even though women hold managerial positions, few have made breakthroughs to top level positions.' (Adair, 1994).
However it is quite noticeable that the glass ceiling is still solid as ever and to an extent we can call this discrimination. 'The glass ceiling barrier towards women is nothing but an insidious form of sex discrimination, in violation of law.' (Ann, 1994) And while company managers increasingly recognize the value of workforce diversity, particularly at the management levels, glass ceiling barriers continue to deny women the opportunity to compete for and hold executive level positions. For a company like KBR, both genders are important despite the nature of work involved.
The glass ceiling starts to form itself very early on, the moment...
Affirmative Action: Why We Need to Reform It It is widely believed that the American society is a "melting pot" where members of racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities eventually mold into the mainstream, becoming full-fledged citizens of the country. The reality, however, is much more complicated. While it is true that America offers many opportunities to all its citizens, there is a history of discrimination against minority groups that affects
Affirmative Action At its most objective definition, affirmative action entails "positive steps taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in areas of employment, education, and business from which they have been historically excluded." Affirmative action acknowledges the presence of institutionalized and systematic forms of discrimination: which may not be apparent to members of the dominant or privileged culture. For example, white males will not even notice that no Blacks
Discrimination and Affirmative Action DISCRIMINATION The current study investigates gender discrimination and the relationship between organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Women report through survey questions on how they view gender discrimination against women today, their level of commitment to an organization, and their level of agreement on how satisfied they are in their jobs. The purpose of this study is discussing certain issues that pertain particularly to women, because majority of women's
She looked at the job and her growth has been due to her successes in dealing with the job. These skills according to her are more important than her gender. A similar type of a message comes from Susan Arnold, President global personal beauty care at proctor & Gamble. According to her, she has shattered some glass ceilings on the way, but has been treated fairly throughout her career.
Miller & Lemons (1998) had identified other problems, one of which was, in fact, exclusion from the old boy networks. They noted the fact that women also often are in a pioneering role as problematical." And they had a very sympathetic viewpoint of the 'differences' in family responsibilities obliquely identified by the GAO report: "Also, after spending a long day at work, most of these women still have to go
Persistent Need for Affirmative Action Policies Affirmative Action The Historical Roots of Contemporary Affirmative Action Policies President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925 in 1961 to mandate unbiased hiring practices in federally funded agencies and projects using "Affirmative Action," thus beginning a 50-year history of administrative, legislative, and court actions that repeatedly redefined the role of Affirmative Action policies in American society. Kennedy's executive order was codified in the Civil Rights Act
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