ABSTRACT

All over the world women have been and are always downgraded and relegated everywhere, whether it’s a developed or developing country, their social status is marginalized by society. Seeing the low representation of women at the top managerial level, this paper aims to analyze the existence and level of ‘glass ceiling’ about women in Pakistani academia. The study tries to explore the answer to such questions like; why are women marginalized in leading position? What are the obstacles faced by women to the level of advancement in academia? Is it merely due to culturally and socially constructed prescribed roles or is one of the forms of gender discrimination? To find the answers to these questions, the method has been designed to collect data through secondary resources for analyzing the representation of females at higher levels in universities. The study reveals that apart from socially constructed gender discrimination, chauvinism is not the sole reason behind hindering the women from reaching the higher level in hierarchy, instead, it is ‘self-imposed glass ceiling’ by women as well, as they sacrifice their career because of their family preferences and other circumstances which are not conducive for them to continue their job, and hence the opinion generalized about them that they are not suitable for the jobs specially at the level of advancement due to higher responsibilities and more timings, therefore they are depreciated and cause ‘glass ceiling’ because of these facts. On the other hand male are given preference because they are breadwinners and best suited to be hired and given promotions to the level of advancement. Keywords: Glass Ceiling, obstacles, academia, level of advancement, socially constructed, marginalized, chauvinism

https://ijbpas.com/pdf/2019/September/MS_IJBPAS_2019_4811.pdf

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https://doi.org/10.31032/IJBPAS/2019/8.9.4811