Gender Stratification:

Mommy track, Glass Escalator and Glass Ceiling

This assignment comprises two parts. The first part discusses the concepts of

mommy track, glass escalator, and glass ceiling. In so doing, four courses on the

importance of equality among gender will be highlighted. The second part focused

on the ways to diminish the issue of disparity in work place among women.

The words “mommy track” used for the career path decided by work schedule

offering mothers certain benefits, such as negotiable working time but regularly

providing them with fewer opportunities for advancement. Women are discriminated

against when the want to have children and society ought to force private enterprises

to make allowances for childbearing. In sociological terms the “mommy track” is the

action of employers discouraging women from goals in the work force due to the

responsibilities of being a mother (Curiel 2008, Chuck N. Brandon P). Mothers

returning to work after maternity always find themselves placed on the mommy track.

The feeling of guilty is always haunted them when they are going back to the job

after having children because, not just they will face the prospect of being put on the

mommy track but also more likely to be left off with the easier and lower pay job.

They also feel upset by their busy career-oriented counterparts.

The second obstacles that usually faced by the careered women is “glass

ceiling”. The situation referred to as a “ceiling’’ because there’s a restrictions

blocking upward advancement, and “glass” which is literally transparent referred to

the limitation that is not immediately noticeable. This obstacle continues to exist even

though there are no clear barrier keeping women from acquiring a good job position.

When there is such discrimination in workplace, they usually use an indirect excuse

like spontaneous movement or sounds that upset the women. Mainly, this unseen

obstacle seems to happen in more of developing countries. This is the barrier that

keeps a numbers of women from obtaining and securing the prestigious jobs in the

workforce. These kinds of walls make many women feel as they are not valuable

enough to have the high-ranking positions. They also feel as if their employers do

not take them seriously or maybe not see them as potential candidates.

The term “glass escalator” on the other hand means the hidden advantages

for men in the female professions. Most studies of sex segregation in the workforce

on women’s experience in male-dominated occupation. However, men are less likely

to enter female-dominated occupations than women are to enter male dominated

jobs. The examples of women’s dominated job are elementary school teaching,

nursery and also librarian. In some rural Texas school, they refused to hire men in

the younger grades. Nationwide, about 7.5 percent of all nurses are male (T.

Schaefer, 2001). The glass escalator will retain the men from getting a promotion

because the employer’s think that the women cab do the certain job way better than

men. In particular, women in engineering and blue-collar occupations encounter

gender-based stereotypes about their competence which undermine their work

performance (Martin1980; Epstein 1988).

However, there always ways to diminish the issue of disparity in work place

among women and other causes such as sexism and racism. In order to lessen the

impact of the mommy track, there are a few steps that can be taken. First of all,

women must be fully clear in achieving their goal or in another meaning, they must

have a good plans pertain to maternity leave, make a fine leave plan to the

management and also planned the date to return. A pregnant working women that

are planning to take leave have to make sure that outstanding projects properly

changed. Learn from others mistake and be prepared even though sometimes this

can’t be avoid. It’s a must for new mother to always have a back up plan if there’s

anything unwanted to happen to their children. It is also important for working mother

to keep the line of communications open in order to avoid mommy track. An e-mail or

short phone call to the employer and other important people is vital to make

everyone know that you are still in the game.

In the same way, we can also lessen the effect of glass ceiling by

comprehend the significance of identity in minority success. One should study on

how to blend their identity with the realities of workplace. The two most important

things are self- awareness and self-confidence especially for men who work in

female-dominated workplace. Besides, ensure your prospects are realistic and

achievable. Some people will just blame others when they can’t achieve their

expectation and this will make you look not responsible for your action. Even though

the biggest contributing factor is biasness, you still need to evaluate how you could

have handle things differently and determine what you will do in the future to prevent

it. In addition, by actively seeking out for opportunities for training and education can

helps in learning and build up the right profile of an executive. Constantly practice to

develop communication, self-management and decision making skills because they

are important for you to climbing the corporate ladder.

Similarly, there’s also ways to decrease the effect of glass escalator if we all

work together to lessen the gap of inequality between male and female. We need to

do work that we really enjoy and jobs in companies with cultures that compliment

your strength and personality traits to make it easier for us to tolerate the possible

isolation, bias, prejudice and other barriers that we might encounter. We must

always stay motivated and make sure people will notice our accomplishment in the

workforce. To overcome class escalator, minorities must be extremely visible.

Develop the ability to promote your skills and accomplishment so that people will

always look at you as and important and reliable man. Once you know what to do to

be visible and important, you will become in demand and the discrimination will

slowly decrease.

As for the conclusion, all the social stratification must be overcome in order to

have a better and more develop country. A company will perform better if there’s no

sexism and discrimination. Like other forms of stratification, gender stratification can

also be avoided if everybody plays their part in overcoming all the differences and

the inequality.