(Much of the material for this post comes from David J. Maume Jr.’s 1999 work “Glass Ceilings and Glass Escalators,” because that’s the one in my Work Organization textbook. More recent citations gratefully accepted.)
According to analysis of the PSID (Panel Study of Income Dynamics), a longitudinal study of a representative sample of American families, between 1989 and 1999, 44% of white men and 17% of black men are promoted out of primarily female occupations into managerial positions. However, only 15% of white women and 7% of black women are promoted out of these positions.
Initially, this sounds like a good thing for men. After all, promotions are cool, right? However, the “glass escalator,” as it is known, has its roots in anti-male sexism.
According to a groundbreaking 1992 study by Christine L. Williams, “The glass escalator: hidden advantages for men in the ‘female’ professions,” men in typically female professions (she interviewed nurses, teachers, librarians and social workers) are viewed as ”deviant.” In particular, the clients of schools, hospitals and social work agencies tend to prefer women to equally qualified men. Supervisors respond to this by promoting men out of these occupations.
In general, women are assumed to be better at nurturing tasks and men are assumed to be better at instrumental tasks such as delegation, planning and organization. This is a classic case of a social narrative that is sexist against both genders: not only does it cast doubt on women’s ability to lead, but also on men’s ability to care.
A man is fully capable of sponge-bathing an elderly person or comforting a woman dying in a hospice; he is fully capable of teaching a child to read or mentoring a troubled teenager. To suggest otherwise is to deny men their full humanity: after all, humans evolved as group animals. We evolved to care about and take care of each other, and to arbitrarily cut off half of humanity from this heritage is the height of stupidity.
In addition, it is generally assumed, according to Williams’s research, that a female nurse wants to make a living out of caring for patients, while a male nurse is assumed to want career success. This ties in to the image of men as “success object,” the way women are “sex objects”: in the same way that our culture presents the highest goal of women as looking conventionally attractive, it presents the highest goal of men as being conventionally successful (i.e. a professional in a high-earning occupation). A man who doesn’t want to be a success object is as silly as a woman who doesn’t want to be a sex object. (More on this in an exciting upcoming post!)
In fact, the expectation that men will go for managerial roles represents one of the largest flaws with the “glass escalator.” Most people who choose caring careers such as social work or teaching choose them because they want to help people, not shuffle papers in an office. You can shuffle papers in an office for much better pay at Goldman Sachs. Essentially, men are being systematically driven out of the professions they actually want to do and are good at– the professions they chose– because of outdated and ridiculous gender expectations that they cannot be caretakers and must be driven by success over all.
To not be given the chance to choose emotional satisfaction with your work over monetary reward is exactly the same as to not be given the chance to choose monetary reward over emotional satisfaction with your work. It’s the same situation, as reflected in a broken mirror.
It is important not to underestimate other factors not covered in Williams’s research: for instance, men may bond with their male supervisors more than their female coworkers, possibly by sharing interest in so-called ”male bonding” activities. (It would be interesting to see a sociological study of whether men who are interested in, say, knitting get promoted as much as men who are interested in golf.) However, the statements she’s collected in her research provide a clear example of how sexism hurts men too– even in situations in which it may seem to be beneficial.
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I see your point, and I think this is a really valuable concept. But I’m hung up on this:
“Essentially, men are being systematically driven out of the professions they actually want to do and are good at– the professions they chose… To not be given the chance to choose emotional satisfaction with your work over monetary reward is exactly the same as to not be given the chance to choose monetary reward over emotional satisfaction with your work.”
Don’t men in this situation have a chance to choose? A social worker who is offered a promotion to an administrative position, solely because he is a man, presumably has the opportunity to turn down the promotion; I can’t think of many workplace situations where accepting promotion is compulsory. On the other hand, a social worker unfairly passed over for a promotion because she is a woman has absolutely no opportunity to make a choice — the opportunity for advancement just isn’t there for her to accept or reject. Certainly I understand that there is social and economic pressure to accept a promotion when it’s offered, but that’s not the same as having no choice at all.
I think an aspect that’s important here is the social pressures, which are twofold: One, those experienced in the workplace to leave it, and two, those externally which tell men they must succeed and maximize their career goals above all else. The first could make it uncomfortable for a man to stay where he was (if he could tell he was unwelcome), and the second would make the choice seem like a false one: “Stupidly sacrifice my career or take the advancement?”
Yes, they of course can choose. But many things affects our choices. One can be the fact that men are more often expected to be the breadwinner in a relationship and your partner may not be too understanding of you not wanting to accept a promotion which most often include higher pay. I saw a similar study from Norway a few years back where male nurses cited the lack of acceptance and even hostility from their female co-workers as a reason for taking or seeking that promotion.
There may also be another pressure that I’ve read about in military contexts. (Okay, military sci-fi. So shoot me.) Someone who refuses a promotion is assumed to be bad at their current job, to lack necessary drive and ambition, and may suffer in place for it. That is, if the nurse turns down a promotion out of being a nurse, they may be reassigned to more rote and boring jobs, based on the assumption that they’re not really looking to get ahead in life. That could be hard to demonstrate, but might be a real factor in promotion pressure.
Hey! I write military sci-fi (well, military-ish)! No need to feel bad…
I don’t know if it’s covered in the books you’ve referenced or not, but it seems that in your post you’ve missed the role that the men themselves might play in this (How dare you not cover every aspect of a situation as simple a societal sexism in a single blog post!??)
Though you talk of male bonding with their male supervisors you haven’t mentioned that these men who have been raised to asspire to the “success object” ideal are (probably) more likely than their female counterparts to be activly gunning for the promotion. This could take the form of deliberately taking on more hours, being more preparred to move long distances to accommodate a promotion that is only available at a different branch (or increase their commute), or staying with the same employer for longer to take advantage of built up seniority*.
While you raise a valid point about men being pushed up and out of caring proffessions, I expect that the men are doing their own bit to pull themselves along.
*The examples given here are behaviours that men have been observed to be more likely (in general) to engage in than women. They are discussed further in Warren Farrell’s book “Why Men Earn More, (and what women can do about it)”. So far as I know he’s the one who came up with “success object” theory which you’ve reffeered to in his book “The myth of male power”. Though from your post I’m guessing you’ve already read one or both of his books
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Oh, hey, you have gone into it a bit, “it is generally assumed, according to Williams’s research, that …. a male nurse is assumed to want career success.”
Sorry, I have a cold and didn’t cognatise as well as I should have. Anyway, do your references examine whether this assumption has any truth to it or not? Just because a man’s in nursing doesn’t mean he’s gotten over trying to be a success object.
You’re right, it is a very complicated issue and I could only go over a couple of the factors cited in Williams’s research (which involved interviews with people in female-dominated professions to figure out the reasons they cited to explain why men tended to get promoted more quickly).
I hadn’t heard the “glass escalator” concept couched as misandry before, only as misogyny. Interesting.
In my experience, most gendered things are both. I think the glass escalator is a clear example of benevolent sexism: even though it benefits men, it’s born of inaccurate and stereotyped assessments of their abilities and desires.
I think it’s misandry the same way chivalry and such are misogyny — easy to look in from the outside and go “things are great!” while from the inside you’re screaming “STOP I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS”.
I think every instance of “mis(andr/ogyn)y” has a flipside of “(fe)male privilege,” and vice versa. Where men unfairly benefit, women hurt; where women unfairly benefit, men hurt. I’m trying to think of an instance where this doesn’t hold true.
One of the best bosses I ever had said that it was important to him to try to figure out what each individual he supervised wanted out of his or her job in the short and long term. Some people want to advance, some want to be what he called “Steady Eddies” (though he was clear about the fact that these did not break out by gender). He was also very pragmatic about the fact that being a “steady eddie” wasn’t a bad thing, that every work group needed dependable and seasoned employees who may not be interested in climbing the ladder but do a lot of on-the-job training and model everyday leadership. Amazingly, this boss got a lot of good results AND the loyalty of the people who worked for him, who felt as if they were valued individuals who got the opportunity to choose the kind of work that suited each of them best. That was a great example to see and one I learned much from. Making generalizations or treated people like one big faceless group leads to a lot of wrong assumptions and inefficiencies.