Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2017
Abstract
The “glass ceiling” is one of many metaphors we use to talk about systematic inequalities in particular workplaces, the labor force more generally, and the distribution of social goods along identity lines most broadly. It was first coined in 1986 to describe the phenomenon of an invisible barrier that women did not seem to be able to cross in their efforts to ascend to the highest positions in businesses and government.1 The focus of most research and discussion of the glass ceiling has glossed over important racebased inequalities among women; more recently, the barrier that women of color face has been called the “concrete ceiling.”2 This shift in language is important not just to highlight disparities among women, but also to account for the realities of stalled progress and the debate about how to fix gender gaps. A glass ceiling can be shattered by a single woman with a hammer, but a concrete ceiling “‘need[s] a door and there need to be other people on the other side of that door’” to help a person through.3
Recommended Citation
McCormick, Marcia L., "Sterotypes as Channels and the Social Model of Discrimination" (2017). All Faculty Scholarship. 36.
https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/faculty/36