The glass ceiling is a metaphor that was coined by Marilyn Loden in the United States in the early 1980´s to represent an invisible barrier that prevented women from advancing to top positions in a company or an organization. After 40 years it is still valid, it appears in social networks where high-achieving women who overcame obstacles and were promoted are congratulated or to describe differences in opportunities and salary, for example.
In Mexico, only 14.6 % (CIMAD-IPADE) of the senior management functions are undertaken by women, not for reasons of lacking competence or capabilities. Among the main causes are the sociocultural factors which continue today to influence the society due to the assignation of masculine and feminine roles based on traditional values that place women in support tasks and men in leadership functions.
There are no explicit rules to limit women´s career advancement in the workplace so identifying an imperceptible barrier becomes very difficult for everyone. Yet, it is constantly built on classical gender prejudices and biases affecting many women´s self-esteem to the extent of doubting about their competence, self-demanding perfectionism, blaming themselves, feeling angry or withdrawing into passivity.
Glass ceilings are not only external but internal as well, the latter refers to the internalization of discriminatory commands from the environment that a great number of women store in their mind and unconsciously reveal through behaviors that restrict themselves towards any opportunity which do not comply with those commands. Moreover, these unfavorable behaviors contribute to continuing the external glass ceiling.
Internal glass ceilings are restrictive and inhibiting forces considered more powerful than the external ones because they are engraved in the mind´s procedural memory, used to respond automatically, that is, without thinking making the awareness of dysfunctional patterns almost impossible. In addition, there is a tendency to point the finger at external causes which as much as they can be restrictive, they do not constitute 100% of the barriers that prevent women from rising to higher ranks in a corporation.
If you want to fulfill your dreams, whatever they are, we suggest asking yourself, how do I view myself? As someone competent who deserves opportunities and accomplishments? or as someone who has unconsciously accepted orders from her internal punitive part?
Thinking about your goals and the resources you count on to achieve them: academic studies, experience, and the value-added contributions you have made to your companies, will help you know your worth, what you have attained because of your personality qualifications and competences. This information can be synthesized in one word, strengths, the most important part of your equipment to navigate through the external glass ceilings with better probabilities of breaking them.
When you recognize and own your strengths your self-esteem changes, it becomes healthier and higher, you feel deserving of success, it is then when you can focus your energy assertively, that is, coherently between actions and goals.
Difficult, but not impossible
María de Lourdes Hauss
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