The Other 99%: An Update on the Glass Ceiling

While studying for an Art History exam this week, I grouped the artists I had to memorize by first name.  Johns, Jeans, and Jans in one group.  Pauls and Pablos in another.  Davids, Peters/Pietrs, Franks/François—you get the idea.

In an attempt to find some order in a list of over 100 names, spanning all of Western art since 1450, I noticed one name that didn’t fit any of my categorizations: An-My Lê.  She’s a Vietnamese American artist living and working in New York.  And unlike all of the other artists we studied this semester, she happens to be a woman and a minority.

I was a little shocked and very disappointed.  I found it hard to believe that the group of Harvard professors who taught the course could only come up with one female artist since 1450 whose work seemed worth acknowledging.  Even a simple Wikipedia search yields quite a number of notable female artists.

I am reminded of an informal discussion with Adrienne Rich, which I attended several years ago as an undergraduate.  I remember being baffled as this petite, aging woman railed against gender inequality with such force and intensity.

Isn’t the whole glass ceiling thing kind of over? I thought.  I wondered if perhaps she didn’t realize the kinds of educational opportunities even a small-town girl like me could take advantage of.  

In the summer before high school, I attended a free summer program created to expose girls to the field of computer science.  In college, I joined the Women in Business group for a while.  All along the way, I’ve met female teachers, doctors, lawyers, and professors whom I admire.  Even the Harvard/Radcliffe division at Rich’s alma mater had been dissolved long before I arrived.

After my Art History exam, I ended up at Panera Bread with a classmate.  As I told him about the long list of 99% white male artists I’d just memorized, he wondered if maybe it was a fluke.

I wasn’t so sure.

“I bet we’re supporting ‘the patriarchy’ right now,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows.  “What do you mean?”

“I’ll bet you Panera Bread’s entire board of directors is male.”

He googled it.  I was right.

After a little more searching, he found one female management executive: Liz Dunlap, head of Panera’s Human Resources.

But this article isn’t about criticizing Panera.  It’s about questioning who’s in charge and why—not just there, but in so many businesses and institutions that shape our culture, our economy, and even our spiritual consciousness.

Women are still grossly underrepresented in technology, business, and academia, particularly as managers, executives, board members, and presidents, in these fields.  Women and queer individuals are still excluded from the highest posts of religious leadership in so many religious circles, from the Catholic Priesthood to the Orthodox Jewish Rabbinate to the Conservative Protestant Ministry.

So many of the products, companies, and media we encounter are marketed with meticulous attention to the demographics of their consumers.  But as consumers of products, ideas, and information, we have the responsibility to consider the demographics and potential biases of the people behind the products we buy and the decision-makers behind the institutions that shape our societies.

As for the reasons why women still barely exist in many of these powerful corners of our society, I can only guess.  I’m sure each profession has its own nuanced explanation.  I’m sure women often do a great deal of leadership work, while remaining unrecognized, invisible, and underpaid.  

As for my hope for the present and the future, I think it’s important not only to break down gender inequality in existing frameworks, but to create new ones.  I think our greatest hope for change lies in empowering people of all genders, classes, sexual orientations, and ethnicities to create more effective and more sustainable structures for businesses, academic institutions, and religious communities.

All too often, we assume inequality persists in other regions, other countries, other fields, or other religions besides our own.  It is essential that we turn a critical eye on the fundamental frameworks in our own lives and seek out underlying inequalities.  In this way, we can begin to free ourselves from oppressive frameworks which pervade our individual perceptions and our collective consciousness.

This isn’t about reserving a few positions in various fields for women and minorities.  It’s not about adding a couple of women to a syllabus to make it look balanced.  It’s about finding root causes of inequality and making real change.

What do you think?  Have you encountered inequality in surprising places?  How do you think change can happen?  Comment below or email me at readmelisa [at] gmail [dot] com.

(Photo taken at the RISD Museum)