ORGANISATIONAL

BEHAVIOR- II

Women Empowerment and Glass Ceiling

SUBMITTED TO- SUBMITTED BY-

Dr. Saleena Khan Akshay Singh - 201831006
Arunima Sharma– 201831013
Karan Deep Kaul -201831020
Parvesh Kumar - 201831028
Sanjay Singh -201831038
Shubham Tiwari - 201831045
Zaid Hussain - 201831051
 INDEX
1. Glass Ceiling
2. Women Empowerment
3. Survey Analysis
4. Interview
5. Conclusion
 Glass Ceiling

“Do not try to squeeze into the glass slipper. Instead, shatter the glass ceiling.”

INTRODUCTION
Glass Ceiling may be termed as an invisible barrier which does not allow the minorities (like
women, Dark skinned in US etc.) to acquire or reach a position specified beyond a certain level.
Glass ceiling was the term which was popularised through a wall street journal in 1986.The article
highlighted the fact that how women are unable to break an invisible barrier and reach to executive
and managerial positions in a corporate world which was mainly dominated by males. Talking
about IT sector, specially, Indian IT sector, women account for just 34% in the IT industry and
makes less than just 10% of C-suit positions. The question is why? There might be some or the
other reason that this term is into existence and is most widely talked about. In 1939, a French
feminist and an author, George Sand while performing a play quoted “I was a woman, suddenly
my wings collapsed either closed in around my head like an impenetrable crystal vault, and I fell
“. The play signified how the dreams and aspirations of the women in society are killed due to
factors like society, environment and disbelief in oneself.
Society and Environment: Women due to family pressure which is a result of societal pressure are
supposed to maintain a balance between work life as well as cooking or family life. For them there
first priority should be marriage, family, kids etc. An interesting fact to be highlighted is that in
India women in urban part are involved in household chores more than their rural counterparts
(81.29%) in spite of the fact that women in rural areas account for 51% illiteracy. Illiteracy is one
of the most crucial reasons among many which leads to gender gap in working professional ratio.
Men in women many a times are brought up with the thought process in mind that women are
weak and needs to be always protected and handles with care. Physically yes, but mentally no,
because this somewhere down the line creates an impression that women are not capable enough
technically to aspire the higher positions in environment. This also creates a distrust of women in
themselves which pinpoints our another reason for glass ceiling, that is, disbelief in oneself.
Women undermine one by not trusting one’s own capabilities and many times give up technical
jobs in the fear of not performing as good as their male counterparts can. Due to undervaluing
themselves they often seen as clueless when it comes to impacting their leadership and executive
decision making in benefiting their company. In spite they should focus more on becoming great
in fields like finance, numbers, and tech-savvy languages so they can contribute better than and as
equally as their male colleagues. Women at workplaces most of the times also shy away from
conflicts by disowning their power. Instead of getting or fighting for their rights they lose their
confidence and avoid fighting for their rights besides overlooking the fact that they can outshine
their male counterparts. Women should avoid not taking up the opportunities of speaking and
presenting, which might be the reason for them being in spotlight and fulfilling their dreams.
Women should keep in mind that they should just head towards achieving their dreams and
fulfilling their aspirations without any doubt in their capabilities and thinking that they have to
break any glass ceiling, all they should remember is that they are equally deserving and competent
enough that they will achieve what they aspire for. But that does not mean that glass ceiling does
not exsist, most of the men and women specially women run into it in their personal and
professional life. Why as a group we chose this topic is to make aware the young aspiring women
and men who somewhere feel that this term might create a hindrance in their life and may become
a reason to stagnant their growth, it’s for them that through taking live interviews and by learning
through the experiences of the people we talked regarding this subject, it’s a small effort by us to
bring about a change. Because why to objectify oneself and count your each and every achievement
as being put in a box and try hard to break that box in the name of glass ceiling. We are free and
have each and every right to showcase our talent and reach to a position where we see ourselves
in. Debjani Ghosh, NASSCOM chief was once asked in her interview that where she sees herself
in next 15 years and she replied confidently “As a country head”, the answer surely raised the
eyeballs and made a deep impression on interviewer. She believed and therefore she succeeded.
And there is nothing wrong in being ambitious. The idea is that women in society from the
beginning have to prove themselves a little more, but what has to be kept in mind is that in order
to overcome the problem of glass ceiling, let’s take that extra mile and showcase the society who
we, the women are and where we belong. This instance and many more real life stories taking us
to head towards the other side of story which is, how to break this glass ceiling and overcome the
barrier prevailing in society not just in corporate sector but in all the sectors of society.
 Women Empowerment

“Before, I was a wife who cowered before her husband and brought no
income to a family. Now I am a community leader, an income earner and
equal partner in my marriage. Women empowerment has helped me find my
voice, my power, myself.”
According to the definition, Women empowerment is the procedure in which women elaborate
and recreate what is that they can be, do, and accomplish in a circumstance that they previously
were denied. When women and girls have the power to act to exercise their rights, be full and equal
members of society. And that’s all true when we are taking about when to get married, when and
how many children to have, when and where to work, how to spend their money, whether they can
more around the streets freely and how to equally contribute in the decision making. So why
women empowerment matters? It’s because it’s not an add-on to development, it’s at the core of
development, for nations for families; otherwise it’s ok to lose half of your resources and potential
which they contribute through their unique skills and who would want that. We have seen a lot of
progress in last 15 years. Women like Mother Teresa, winner of noble price 1979, also one of the
selfless human beings in the world; she brought into light the sufferings of the people in society
and across the globe 123 countries run charity under her name. Kalpana Chawla, women who will
be remembered as the first Indian origin women who became an American astronaut. Indra Nooyi,
she rightfully claimed everyone’s attention when she became the CEO of Pepsico. She is also
among the FORBES 100 top powerful women. Richa Kar, she always had the spark of becoming
an entrepreneur and hence got motivated and became founder of Zivame , inner apparel shop for
women. Mary Kom, a legendary Indian boxer who by her achievement of winning six
championships made the country proud and many more. But the question is why there is a need
for women empowerment? The answer to this is gender gap, education sector, health sector and
political sector. Talking about gender gap, women in every sector whether politics or education
hold less seat as compared to men. In spite of the fact that women since 1980 have gain support
and through their willingness to achieve their goals have successfully achieved and made their
position but the ratio is still less, just 30% top positions as compared to men. Not just this, the
gender gap has become stable, and stability is a sign that somewhere down the line there are still
issues like government policies, societal pressure or may be women themselves are unwilling to
look up to their dreams. A very interesting study available on Wikipedia suggest that women
exploitation which highlights another factor for hindrance in women empowerment, is increased
due to display of personal information on social media. Stalking, online harassment, pornography
etc are example of all such nuisance prevailing in society. Women in corporate also suffer from
unfair hiring process, high pay raise, sexual harassment. However, talking about corporate,
companies as well as government have provided schemes which highly focus on bringing in
diversity by hiring women and have a minimum reserve seats for women to be part in every sector.
Talking about the progress in last 15 years, education for example the gender gap in primary school
completion for women is closing. While women are being elected in government positions globally
and economic empowerment is happening for a lot of women like they are working outside their
home, and they are taking part with their partners in decision making about how to spend their
money ironically in many of the same areas which we have seen progress, we are still lagging
behind in education for example we need to see completion of secondary education for girls not
just enrolment in the poorest and most remote areas women are in what is known as the invisible
sector where they do not get the same job benefits or wages that they do in the formal sector. Even
in formal employment women are not earning the same as men and there is a huge area that needs
to be addressed as discussed above the gender based violence, whether in conflict area or in homes.
The bottom line is that societies need to recognise that it is everyone’s best interest for women to
be empowered, that means men and women getting behind it that means policies that enable
women’ empowerment and we need to start at a very young age, we need to start with girls and
boys, so that in 15 years they will see even more advancement.
 SURVEY ANALYSIS
We circulated a google form in which a survey comprising of several questions on women
empowerment and glass ceiling. We got the responses recorded and in accordance to it we
performed a survey analysis.

1. Do you have a Work-Experience?

First we conducted a survey in which we asked people from various pool and asked them
do they have work experience. And after when they responded the form according to that
and answered the following questions.

Work Experience

46% Yes
54% No

2. How many months of work experience do you have?

For data authentication we set a parameter of how many months they worked in the
organization like if they have spent more time they must have faced more kind of
situations and circumstances through which we can go deep in that and understand it
better.
 Work Ex. In Months

13%
None
15% 0-6
46%
07-Dec
13-24
19% 24+

8%

3. Do you feel you are treated equally within the workplace by your employer
compared with male colleagues?

Out of the people we surveyed what people felt when they worked in an organization. Do
they treated well or do they have different views about that we found that 64% people
feel that they were treated well as compared to other male counterpart in same
organization and 36% people disagreed and said male were treated better.

Equality

36%

64%

Agree
Disagree
4. Have you ever been a victim of gender discrimination in the workplace?

Talking about the gender gap we found that 48% women were the victim of gender
discrimination where they have worked. Just because they are female their colleagues don’t
look up them as capable as the other people working in organization. 52% women
disagreed to this fact and share their views that they are equally treated and there is no
discrimination regarding gender.

Gender Discrimination Victim

Yes
No 48%
52%

5. Have you struggled to find a leadership role?

When we talk about women do they really have to struggle to find a leadership role in an
organization 36% women responded Yes to this and said they have to struggle a lot at
times they found that their male counterpart is not capable of doing the same thing even
though they are preferred above them. 36% of the response which we get they are not
sure or never faced this kindof situation currently. 24% women disagrees with this fact.
 Leadership Role
Yes No Maybe

24%
40%

36%

6. In my workplace, the number of women penetrating the hierarchy and achieving

senior positions is steadily rising.

As during the modern working scenario, we questioned women about is the penetration
of women achieving higher positions rising or not the response we get 17% women still
disagree with this fact the women worked a lot to achieve hierarchical position and after
lot of hard work they won’t be able to make it. 54% women remain neutral regarding this
and 29% women agree that yes it is steadily rising.

Hierarchy

Disagree
Agree 17%
29%

Neutral
54%
7. In my workplace, women have to perform better than their male counterparts to be
promoted to the same position.

We also considered the amount of hard work and performance which women have to put
in to get promoted in an organization and found that 39% women agree to this that they
have to perform a lot better that their male counterparts as they get fear of not doing any
mistake whereas on the other hand men has an advantage their mistake can be neglected.
35% women disagree with this fact that they have to perform equally for promotion.
26% women remain neutral in this.

Promotion for same position.

Disagree Neutral Agree

39% 35%

26%

8. In my workplace women are primarily encouraged to apply for support roles (such
as staff positions, administrative services, etc.) rather than for operational,
technical, and general management positions.

As far as assigning role to women employee compares to men 26% women agree to this
they are preferred more for support roles rather than technical, operational and general
management positions they won’t be considered capable enough for doing that role better
when it comes to male counterpart. 39% women remain neutral and 31% women disagree
with this and said more of women are on executive, general and operation positions.

Support Roles
Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral
Agree Strongly agree

0%
4%
26%
31%

39%
 INTERVIEW
We took an interview of Palak Singh who is currently working as senior technical recruiter at
KTEK Resourcing. We asked her some questions, to which her reply was as follows:

Q.1) Do you think that there is an invisible barrier preventing women from reaching the
highest level in your profession regardless of their accomplishments and merits? If Yes,
why do you think it exists in your profession?

Ans 1) I personally do not think there is any kind of invisible barrier stopping women to reach
the highest levels in their respective careers. In fact, women these days are leading ahead in most
of the areas if we talk about profession. It’s an age of equality and women have taken themselves
way ahead if we come on comparing them with others.

Q.2) Do you feel women are treated equally within the workplace by your employer
compared with male colleagues?

Ans 2) Indeed women are treated equally in our work place...There is no comparison between
male and female if the motive and perspective is clear...It all depends on the performance.
Giving an example the Director of our company is a female and also the Manager if my team is a
female. So yes all is about equality here

Q.3) Do you consider yourself to have gone through the glass ceiling in your profession? If
yes then how do you manage to break through this?

Ans 3) Yes I have gone through the glass ceiling in my profession. I struggled with this for
almost a year but then when I saw no changes coming in favor of me I left that team and joined
another growing team in my company. I think sometimes that’s the option and stand you have to
take for yourself. Part your ways from things and people who are trying to bring you down.

Q.4) What are the causes for the existence of glass ceiling?

And 4) The cause was actually I can say it was being partial, no matter how honest you are to
your work, you can stay at the top only if you support all the good as well as bad ideas and things
your Manager says to you...In my case, if you are taking a stand for yourself that’s wrong, you
have to support what your manager is saying and that is actually wrong. Also, here they do not
count the professionalism that you have in you, here you have to be personally in good terms to
reach good heights no matter how professional and good you are at your work.
CONCLUSION
After the survey and interview, we came to a consensus that India is a victim of glass ceiling.
Mentality and mind set of the people has to be changed in order to curb such evil doings. Though
our country is diversified in terms of culture, tradition and language, the issues which women
encounter are somewhat same everywhere. Their advancement in career is hampered due to such
mal practices. This is mainly due to the inequality in the gender. Thus women empowerment and
gender equality is a major concern for today’s world. Even the stats show that with the increase
in time women has grown their percentage in working class as well as educational institutes. Just
because of these women other women also are motivate to work and step out of the shackles of
household chores. Having women at the top executive level has proven to be effective for the
awareness amongst the women. Thus, developing them into the role models to other women who
are working. They can ask for a raise or even for promotion. What we figured out was women
being able to achieve these heights, work culture or environment will gradually change making it
easy for the women to accept and work at the executive level.

Still after these many years a glass ceiling is present in the society where women are still not
allowed to follow their dreams and passion. It creates hurdles for the women to reach the top
level management. The qualification of the candidates for a top position is same but a slight
benefit is given to the men. Despite having the same potential or even more than the men, we
don’t have faith in the execution of work imposed by the women.

With the study and research, we came to know that the glass ceiling is slowly breaking and more
new viable options are availed by the women. In this hope as the years pass away, women of the
society will have equal work as compared to their opposite counterparts and responsibilities
shared will be same and the glass ceiling will break forever.