Panes of the Glass Ceiling

More than fifty years of civil rights legislation and movements have not ended employment discrimination. This book reframes the discourse about the “glass ceiling” that women face with respect to workplace inequality. It explores the unspoken, societally held beliefs that underlie and engender workplace behaviour and failures of the law, policy, and human nature that contribute “panes” and (“pains”) to the “glass ceiling.” Each chapter identifies an “unspoken belief” and connects it with failures of law, policy, and human nature. It then describes the resulting harm and shows how this belief is not imagined or operating in a vacuum, but is pervasive throughout popular culture and society. By giving voice to previously unvoiced – even taboo – beliefs, we can better address and confront them and the problems they cause.

Although the term “glass ceiling” entered gender-discrimination discourse over thirty years ago, Kerri Lynn Stone presents a creative and provocative reimagination of it as nine “panes of clear glass” or unspoken beliefs that “eventually form a thick and opaque barrier.” In all my years pondering and experiencing this problem, I've never come across a more translucent articulation of these institutional barriers or how they contribute to systemic, gendered workplace discrimination. Anne Marie Lofaso, Arthur B. Hodges Professor of Law, West Virginia University College of Law

Kerri Stone is Professor of Law at the Florida International University College of Law. Named a "Top Scholar" by FIU, she has published extensively on issues of employment discrimination. She graduated from Columbia College, Columbia University with a BA magna cum laude, and from New York University School of Law.