st stop stereotyping. Corporate America must accommodate the unique needs of women. Examples are extended maternity leaves, flexible hours, in-house day care centers, and even job sharing. Another approach may be to teach women to adapt to masculine attributes. Men should be mentors to women. Sometimes this could mean teaching women how to be a “tough guy” or even to play golf. Women are going to have to learn to “Toot their own horns”. This may be their only port of recognition to break the barrier to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder.When women in the business world today feel that they can never reach the top, it has an affect on their daily work. There is no motivation to work for a company that sees you just as an employee to do clerical work. They do not see you as a valuable, intelligent employee with lots of important contributions to make to the company’s success. There seem to be only four ways that women are able to crack the glass ceiling. They will have to be able to develop technical and managerial skills that are needed in their field. They must be able to exceed all expectations that men have of these skills. Second, women will have to let others know that they have these skills. This is where the “Toot your own horn” will come into play. You as a woman, must know what you want and go after it. Last but not least, you will have to help other people to help you. This can get to be a political battle, but to be able to crack the glass, there may have to be some rock throwing.Until the glass ceiling is shattered it will continue to be a “pocketbook” issue for women, but for Corporate America, if the glass ceiling continues unshattered, it will be a “bottom line” issue. So, does Father know best? For his sake, I hope he learns how to shatter glass!Works CitedSan Franciso Business Times, 02/04/2000, Vol. 14 Issue 27, p59, 3/7p. Online. ...
