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WOMEN IN TOP LEADERSHIP POSITIONS 1he concept itself was created by American sociologist Christine Williams in 1992 in the article titled The Glass Escalator: Hidden Advantages for Men in the “Female” Professions,” and was identified in her research of male nurses, social workers and librarians. The metaphor was identified as evidence of consistent male advantage in these workplaces. That is, even in jobs where men have numerical minorities, they are likely to receive higher wages and move faster up the ladder than female employees.** Williams has since built her own concept further in The Glass Escalator, Revisited: Gender Inequality in Neoliberal Times, SWS Feminist Lecturer® (2013), primarily referring to certain insufficiencies the analogy was not fit to fully grasp. In the scientific discourse, a number of studies dealt with the glass elevator phenomenon she used, and The Glass Escalator: Hidden Advantages for Men in the “Female” Professions has been mentioned in dozens of textbooks, quoted more than 500 times in scientific articles and appeared in other places related to the subject.!°° Williams mentioned two major limitations of the concept. First, it could not handle intersectionality adequately, as it does not take the cross-section of race, sexual orientation and class into consideration, and only addressed experiences of white, middle class cis men. It is clear that black or gay men do not necessarily enjoy the benefits of a glass elevator. Williams refines the phenomenon further when mentioning that the term ‘white solipsism’ coined by Adrienne Rich, which states that the “white” experience is the norm, mean and model of any and all other demographics, means that anyone diverging from the “white” norm can be considered an “exception”. The other issue with the term glass elevator was that it is rooted in the structure of traditional work organisations, which have changed significantly since then. The phenomenon presumes stable employment conditions, a bureaucratic hierarchy which can be observed by state-supported public institutions (educational institutions, libraries, etc.). Although these strictly structured organisations are not characteristic to the labour market anymore, workplaces are more flexible, project-based and transitory currently.” >” Williams, C. L.: The glass escalator: Hidden advantages for men in the “female” professions, Social Problems, 39(3), 1992, 253-267, https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.1992.39.3.03x0034h °8 Floge—Merrill, 1986; Heikes, 1991; Pierce, 1995; Williams, 1989, 1995 quoted by Wingfield. White men in women’s professions are who mostly meet the glass escalator phenomenon, which helps occupational mobility (for exception see Snyder and Green 2008), only a handful of studies deal with it being not only a gender advantage, but also a racial privilege. (Wingfield: Racializing the Glass Escalator, 6) 99 Cf. Williams, C. L.: The Glass Escalator, Revisited: Gender Inequality in Neoliberal Times, SWS Feminist Lecturer, Gender & Society, 27(5), 2013, 609-629, https://www.jstor.org/ stable/43669820?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents 100 Tbidem. 101 Tbidem. +43»
