Glass Ceiling

4 Pages 1115 Words

Business Week: Mexico: Strides and Setbacks for Woman


The article begins by discussing some statistics in Mexico. Mexico is the world’s 13th largest economy and is ranked 48th in terms of gender development This is way below the average of highly industrialized countries. 25 years ago, only one of five Mexican women worked outside the home, compared to one of three today. The article discusses how today a woman governs Mexico City and another presides over the country’s strongest leftist opposition force, while the Senate is presided over by a woman, and two of the members of the cabinet of ministers are women. Women hold 17 percent of seats in the lower house of Congress and 15 percent of seats in the Senate. 14 percent of businesses are In 1994 Mexico linked up with Canada and the United States in the North American Free Trade Agreement. Since then, there have been many protests from sectors complaining trade between countries with such enormous differences has hurt them. According to the article women have been hit the hardest. NAFTA had opened up job opportunity but for low skilled jobs with poor conditions. The new market conditions have led women textile workers to be replaced by men and this has pushed many women into the “informal economy, where they have no social security or benefits.” (UNIFEM) When it comes to working at the same jobs as men women make 40 percent less than men.
This article intrigued an interesting comparison of Mexico’s strive for women to move up in the work force and The United States current glass ceiling. The glass ceiling is the invisible barrier that women have to move up the corporate latter. The glass ceiling theory first drew serious attention in 1991, when the glass ceiling commission was established as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1991. A study released that year by then Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin found that a glass ceiling does indeed exist, limiting the op...