Hillary Clinton says Kamala Harris could break the ‘glass ceiling’ with her nomination. What does it mean?

The term “glass ceiling” has long been invoked as a shorthand for the barriers women face in advancing to senior professional positions. Clinton has used it frequently, like when she became the first-ever woman presidential nominee from either of the two main US political parties in 2016.

After Clinton lost that election to Donald Trump, she said in her speech, “To all the women, and especially young women… I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday, someone will and hopefully sooner than we might think right now.” Where does the term come from? We explain.

What does ‘glass ceiling’ mean?

According to the Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity and Society, “…The word ceiling implies that there is a limit to how far someone can climb before he or she bumps up against a barrier… To say that the ceiling is glass suggests that, although it is very real, it is transparent and not obvious to the casual observer. It also implies that what is on the other side is both visible yet inaccessible to those facing it.”

While there may not exist obvious barriers, like policies prohibiting women from advancing in a profession, something nevertheless keeps them from reaching higher-level roles despite possessing the qualifications.

Who coined the term glass ceiling?

The most frequently cited source is the late American management consultant Marilyn Loden. In an article she wrote for the BBC in 2017, she recalled using it for the first time in 1978, at a panel discussion on women’s career progression.

Loden was then an HR professional. She listened to the women panellists discuss possible behavioural reasons for women’s inability to climb the corporate ladder: “Deficiencies in women’s socialisation, the self-deprecating ways in which women behaved, and the poor self-image that many women allegedly carried.”

However, Loden disagreed. She wrote, “I argued that the ‘invisible glass ceiling’ — the barriers to advancement that were cultural not personal — was doing the bulk of the damage to women’s career aspirations and opportunities.” Citing examples from her career, she added, “My boss made a point of commenting on my appearance at literally every meeting… On several occasions, I was told that the advancement of women within middle management was ‘degrading the importance’ of these positions.”

Why did the term become popular?

The term came as American society witnessed the Second Wave of Feminism in the 1960s and ’70s. Women demanded equality across fields, including in the workplace. Laws were then introduced to deal with these issues, such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 1964, which prohibited employers from discriminating on the basis of sex.

Even without overt discrimination, few women were appointed heads of companies, universities, or political parties. US President George HW Bush established a Glass Ceiling Commission in 1991 to investigate these issues. It found that although women made up nearly 46% of the workforce then and earned more than half of all master’s degrees, 95% of senior-level managers were men.

While advances have been made, the trend continues even in major economies. A 2018 working paper from economist Marianne Bertrand found, “In Europe, only 23.3 percent of board members of the largest publicly listed companies are women and only 5.1 percent are CEOs (European Union 2016), despite women accounting for 45 percent of the labor force.”

In politics too, this underrepresentation is visible. In 2022, women held about 29 percent of seats in the US House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the national legislature. This was the highest percentage ever.

Therefore, a common feeling of persistent barriers drives continued usage of the term.

However, the term has also been criticised for mostly centring affluent, upper-middle-class white women. It ignores groups who are less likely to even get a foot in the door, such as poor women or those from racial minorities. In India, it applies to women from backward castes, who have historically been denied participation in the formal economy.

Why does the glass ceiling persist?

Several theories have attempted to explain it. Sheryl Sandberg, former Facebook COO, argued in her best-selling 2013 book Lean In that women needed to be more assertive, have greater ambition, and make other behavioural changes.

Loden criticised this idea and wrote in a response article in The New York Times at the time, “While Sheryl Sandberg’s advice may pertain to a privileged subset of women with Ivy League educations, ‘leaning in’ is no solution for the gender bias, inflexible work schedules and pay inequities that many working women still face.”

Data points to how men’s and women’s earnings start diverging right after a woman has a child since it requires her to devote extra time to childcare or drop out of the job market.

In her 2021 book, Career & Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity, economist Claudia Goldin discussed this “problem with no name”. She argued that the real issue is how lucrative, senior-level jobs are “greedy”, meaning they require substantial time commitments. As long as these jobs remain inflexible and policies don’t allow and normalise time-offs for men, the difference in career progressions will live on.