Problem:
Sexism continues to sustain the glass ceiling because it is embedded in social identity expectations and reinforced through implicit bias in decision-making. Gender roles teach that men should be agentic and women communal, and workplaces often treat those cultural scripts as job-relevant truths rather than stereotypes (Blaine & Brenchley, 2021). The Glass Ceiling Commission identified biased performance standards-where identical behavior is judged differently depending on the actor's gender, as a core barrier to senior advancement (U.S. Glass Ceiling Commission, 1995). Today, implicit bias manifests through "fit" language, selective risk tolerance, and credibility gaps, which perpetually render women's leadership potential provisional (Blaine & Brenchley, 2021). McKinsey & Company (2021) provides evidence of this in the persistent "broken rung," where women are promoted to first-level manager at lower rates than men, signaling bias at the earliest gateway. Since these biases are subtle and cumulative, they are easy to deny in isolation. However, they become powerful when considered in aggregate. The glass ceiling persists not because women are absent, but because sexism is routinized. Until organizations treat bias as a systems problem, the ceiling will keep re-forming in new shapes. Need Assignment Help?