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WOMEN IN TOP LEADERSHIP POSITIONS Possibilities, obstacles and the chimera of segregation ——o— Most of us spend most of our days in work organisations that are almost always dominated by men. The most powerful organisational positions are almost entirely occupied by men, with the exception of the occasional biological female who acts as a social man." ÍNTRODUCTION There are still a lot of female workers who, despite their qualifications and skills, encounter obstacles in their careers. Although it can be established as a fact that the proportion of woman leaders in the developed countries has increased significantly in recent decades, this change has not reached toplevel leadership positions, where women are still only sporadically getting in.” For instance, despite changes, Hungary only ranked 103rd in the ranking of the Global Gender Gap Index 2017 analysing and comparing 144 countries inter alia on the basis of the gender inequalities in economic participation and opportunities. The result had hardly changed by 2018, when Hungary ranked 102nd among 149 countries.” A higher inflow of women into the labour market began in the 1950s in Western Europe and North America. The segregation of the labour market at that time appeared as a research topic as well, and from the 1970s more and more studies dealt with it. It could be seen that women’s and men’s work statuses and the opportunities to reach higher positions were completely different.®° Joan Acker showed that organisations are not gender neutral institutions, but they are permeated by the gendered substructure of society." 77 Sorenson, quoted by Acker, J.: Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies. A Theory of Gendered organisations, Gender & Society 4(2), June 1990, 139. 78 Monori: Esélyegyenlőség, 145. 79 The Global Gender Gap Report 2017, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2017.pdf (accessed 30 April 2018). 80 Nagy, B. — Primecz, H.: Nők és férfiak a szervezetekben. Kísérlet a mítoszok eloszlatására, Vezetéstudomány Vol. XLI, No. 2, 2010, 2—17. 8! Acker quoted by Nagy, B.: Szervezet és nemek, in Kovács, M. (ed.): Társadalmi nemek: elméleti megközelítések és kutatási eredmények, Budapest, ELTE Eötvös, 2017, 59. + 39 +