The Glass Ceiling: Women in the American Workforce
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Tess Peterson
The rights of women in America has been a circling topic since its founding, with that, women’s minority status has remained the same. Women's first “jobs” in America were categorized under Republican Motherhood. This was the role men gave women after the revolution was won: to teach their children at home about the freedoms of America. They were teaching about the newfound rights Americans now had due to their departure from Britain. The irony speaks for itself: women were to teach their children about freedoms they themselves did not possess.
Women have not had it easy throughout our history, so even though life has improved for women, it is still far from equal to that of men, especially in the workforce. ‘Pink-collar jobs’ are mostly held by women and are lower-paying, service-oriented, jobs with little to no insurance or benefits. When American women first entered the workplace, these ‘Pink-collar jobs’ were the only ones offered to them. The patriarchal views embedded ever so deeply in American soil that women are meant to serve men is partly the reason for women having these jobs in the first place.
Something commonly known is that equal pay is a standard of an equitable society that America does not possess. Women continue to be paid 84% of what a man makes in the same line of work, working the same hours. For decades, women have fought relentlessly for the right to equal pay. They have fought for this without seeing the fruits of their labor. This too may become a reality for the generations of today still fighting for the simplicity of equality among women and men in the workplace. Even with the same education, credentials, and intellect, women are still deemed ‘unqualified’. Instead of looking at a woman's credentials, they are instead questioned if they are going to start a family, which may hinder their career from an employer's perspective.
This idea of being ‘unqualified’ is seen evidently in politics. Women only make up 28% of congressional positions in the U.S. government. Still, in the 21st century, the idea of women having the slightest power on a government level is not a normality. In America, we tell men they can; and women, they can try. The glass ceiling is the notion that no matter how overqualified a woman is in her profession or how hardworking she is, the patriarchal foundation of America will continue to create barriers to block women’s successes.
In American society, women are rarely given the resources to supersede men. The notion that women are for childbearing and motherhood over a career and financial independence from men is still deeply embedded in our society. The country in which we live has put a ‘glass ceiling' over women so that they believe they can achieve at a high level, just to deem them unqualified at the first inconvenience of a man. Women's voices, especially in the workplace, have been overshadowed and muted in American history. Even the simple equality of pay that women continue to fight for in our society is still confined to the patriarchal ideology of our founding.
As women, we continue to fight to break this glass ceiling. With hope, the future girls and women of the generations to come won’t have to imagine life with limits and we will tell them they can, not just simply that they can try.
