Only 8% of Senior Management Positions Held by Women
A Bizwomen.com notes that things are improving for women in the workplace but only very slowly.
According to The Economist magazine, for example, the U.S. government's Glass Ceiling Commission reported in 1995 that women held 45.7 percent of all jobs in the nation but only 5 percent of senior manager positions.
Ten years later, in 2005, women made up 46.5 percent of the work force, but the number in top management positions -- despite the increased publicity given to the issue and recommendations of the Glass Ceiling Commission -- had only grown to less than 8 percent.
A reason for this suggested in the article is that the business world was created by men to suit men's schedule.
Today's work structure was constructed by and to suit men in the days when the husband went to work and the wife stayed home and looked after the home and family. The perceived wisdom was that the husband, after a stressful 9-5 day at the office, returned to the bosom of his family to be soothed and fortified for the next day. Today, it is still widely accepted -- by women as well as men -- that the nurturing role remains the province of women.
Many women are faced with both pursuing a career and raising children which does mix well with the demanding time needs of the work place.
