As our workload for classes gets harder, it is important to remember that we can still turn off our cellphone and computer, so we can read at least 30 minutes each day.
The book that I am currently reading, which I am enjoying a lot, is “Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2007) by Alice H. Eagly and Linda L. Carli.
The book, a piece of nonfiction in a way that is easy to read, “examines why women’s paths to power remain difficult to traverse,” according to the description on the webpage.
They mention that before the widely known “glass ceiling,” women faced the “concrete wall.”
The concrete wall consisted of explicit rules and clear-cut norms that prevented women from advancing. Authors define this term as “absolute barriers.”
We can associate the concrete wall with women not being allowed to vote, to own property or to apply for the jobs they wanted. Recruiters for jobs visiting university campuses were known to post notices saying, “no women need apply.” If this does not make you angry, I don’t know what will.
At the beginning of the book, the authors explain how women have faced different obstacles to reach leadership positions, from not having supportive husbands to not being hired for being a woman, or for being too smart.
In the book, they tell the story of a woman in the 1970s who was looking for a job when she moved to a new city and as a response she got, “I’m sorry, but there are five things wrong with you: You’re a woman, you have an MBA, you were an officer at another bank, you were highly paid, and you are intelligent.” Wow, imagine the lawsuit a company would face nowadays if they did that.
Outstanding credentials did not help women the same way they helped men; for women, they disqualified them for the positions available for men only, such as clerk and bank teller.
This does not mean that companies no longer prefer men over women, because they do, but now, they use other excuses to not hire them, such as “she’s too young, she’ll want to have a family and will have to work less,” or “men are less emotional.”
This book takes the reader on a trip down memory lane to remember how far women, and men, have come to reach complete equality.
This book will not only inform you of how hard it has been and how it is a lot harder for women than for men to reach positions of leadership, but will also teach you how we can achieve equality.
If this is a topic of interest to you, which it should, you can purchase the book on Amazon for as low as $8.
