Volu m e I - Purdue University Calumet

James Bertucci
Saint Joseph‟s College
Of Course There are No Barriers to the Top (Wink, Wink)
Why has it always seemed that whenever a head of a company comes on television or a manager
gets promoted in America that the person was usually a white male? That was the question that many
women and minorities were asking in the United States (US). There appeared to be “an unacknowledged
discriminatory barrier that prevents women and minorities from rising to positions of power or
responsibility,” or glass ceiling, in America, especially in the 1980‟s and 1990‟s. Through the gathering of
statistics, government programs, and the movement of time, the glass ceiling of unacknowledged
discrimination has virtually disappeared from the US.
For many years, the feminist movement has sought equality in wages, job opportunities, and
corporate advancements. This movement culminated in the „70‟s. During the „80‟s and early „90‟s, many
began to feel as if all the talk of the victory of the movement was useless. Many women had found that they
could not advance into positions of authority in many fields, including the corporate, medical, and
governmental ones. After the passage of the 1991 Civil Rights legislation, the Secretary of Labor Lynn
Martin created the Glass Ceiling Commission during the Presidency of Bush, Sr. This organization found
information about the advancement of women and minorities in US society.
In the early „90‟s, much information was found about the glass ceiling for women. For example, in
1995, at Fortune 1000 and Fortune 500 companies, about 95% of senior managers were white males. This
figure was extremely out of proportion with the make-up of the worker population for the respective
companies, where only 43% were while male. In the medical field, men made up most of the doctoral
positions, while women mostly make up positions as nurses or doctors‟ secretaries. The former president
of the AFL-CIO executive council Ms. Miller said about the issue, “When anyone says women are not
affected or have gone beyond the glass ceiling, that‟s ridiculous.” Not only did the facts back up Ms. Miller
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