glass ceiling

English

Etymology

glass (indicating transparency, to allude to the often unacknowledged nature of the limitation) + ceiling (suggesting a barrier to upward advancement)

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU):

  (file)

Noun

glass ceiling (plural glass ceilings)

1. (idiomatic) An unwritten, uncodified barrier to further promotion or progression, in employment and elsewhere, for a member of a specific demographic group.
   • 2007 Jan. 5, "Six thousand women missing from boardrooms, politics and courts," The Guardian (UK), p. 1:

     Women are “woefully” under-represented in parliament, the courts and the boardroom, with new research showing that the glass ceiling is still holding back 6,000 women from the top 33,000 jobs in Britain.

   • 2017 September 19, Jennifer Szalai, “The Education of Ellen Pao”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     […] it was the genteel chauvinism of the enlightened elites at Kleiner Perkins that carried with it the sting of betrayal. They promised her a meritocracy and gave her a glass ceiling instead: “It just wasn’t fair.”

Related terms

• bamboo ceiling
• cotton ceiling

See also

• glass cliff

Translations

unwritten, uncodified barrier

• Catalan: sostre de vidre m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 玻璃天花板 (bōli tiānhuābǎn)

• Dutch: glazen plafond n
• Finnish: lasikatto (fi)
• French: plafond de verre (fr) m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• German: Gläserne Decke f
• Japanese: ガラスの天井 (garasu no tenjō)
• Polish: szklany sufit m
• Portuguese: telhado de vidro m
• Russian: стекля́нный потоло́к m (stekljánnyj potolók)
• Spanish: techo de cristal (es) m
• Swedish: glastak (sv) n

References

• “glass ceiling”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

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Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English glass ceiling.

Noun

glass ceiling m (uncountable)

1. glass ceiling