Discrimination against women in the workplace is exhibited in a variety of ways, ranging from the sexual harassment to the exclusion of women from "the old boys' club" where major decisions are made. Thus, in spite of the massive entry of women in the workplace and the increasing numbers of women in mid-level managerial positions, top-level positions remain as elusive to women today as they were more than a decade ago. Working in a world dominated by male decision-makers and their established practices, women encounter a variety of barriers impeding their surge to the top of their careers. Few women have managed to shatter the "glass ceiling"ùthe concept used to describe the barriers blocking women from top-level positions. The effects of the discrimination on women are manifested in the erosion of their identity and the desexualization of successful women in order to "fit in" with their male counterparts. The psychological effects of discrimination on individual women have serious sociological repercussions: women with feminine attributes leave their work, leaving desexualized women to serve as role models for female newcomers, thus perpetuating the cycle of male domination and discrimination.
In this paper, the causes of the different types of discrimination will be explored. Unconscious discrimination and its effects on both men and women will also be discussion. Furthermore, the detrimental effects on the women caused by discrimination will also analyzed, highlighting the phenomenon of the glass ceiling.
In her book, The Survival Guide for Today's Career Woman, Victoria L. Rayner lists some obvious forms of discrimination against women in the workplace (in "Women Can Do"). Women who are as well-educated as their male counterparts earn less money for the same work that they do. Furthermore, they are also not promoted to higher positions in order to earn more money (Rayner in "Women Can Do" 16). Ann Hopkins who sued succe...