The Glass Ceiling Delusion

Women need to start recognising the implications of a simple reality: individuals are promoted to senior positions, not groups. So why are many women seeking to progress collectively through gender equality initiatives rather than through their individual merits? Talented women who reach the boardroom find such initiatives patronising. Some widely-held assertions about the genders in the workplace: - women's progression into the upper levels of organisations has long been hampered by overt and covert discrimination against women exercised by the men (and sometimes the women) already holding senior positions - the 'glass ceiling' - men aren't more likely than women to have qualities which make them fit for senior positions. Women, conversely, are more likely than men to have such qualities, including higher emotional intelligence, consensual decision-making styles...- more women would seek advancement if they felt inspired by more role models (but who will be the role models' role models?) A former business executive with over 30 years' experience in major corporations and business consultancy critiques 30 assertions about men and women generally and in the workplace - including 'the glass ceiling' - and finds them all to be variously conspiracy theories, fantasies, lies, delusions or myths. He reveals the real reasons why more women don't reach senior positions. More gender equality will result when more hardworking talented women recognise that to progress they will have to do so individually, not collectively. How hard can that be? Harder than beating the drum for gender equality initiatives, certainly, but possibly more effective too? Corporations pursuing gender equality initiatives are engaging in a social engineering experiment which could prove ruinous both for them and for society at large. Militant feminists - a small but vocal band of angry women embracing a Marxist ideology, as the book explains - are behind campaigns for gender balance among senior executives. Why are corporations trying to placate a small band of angry left-wing people?The book reviews the state of gender equality legislation in the United Kingdom where David Cameron, a Conservative prime minister and head of a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, has enacted 90% of The Equality Bill (2010). The Bill was the crowning glory of the career of Harriet Harman, a militant feminist Labour politician.