Sticky Floor Metaphor

December 13 2017by gozzter.

Sticky floor metaphor.

Sticky floors can be described as the pattern that women are compared to men less likely to start to climb the job ladder. Expression used as a metaphor to point to a discriminatory employment pattern that keeps workers mainly women in the lower ranks of the job scale with low mobility and invisible barriers to career advancement. The sticky floor metaphor is one where women somehow hold themselves back either unwittingly or by design. Thereby this phenomenon is related to gender differentials at the bottom of the wage distribution.

Whose undoing is not so much out there but in here. Is a metaphor sometimes used to convey the difficulties that disadvantaged groups experience in moving from the bottom of the organizational hierarchy. Words alone sometimes convey their meanings too narrowly whereas metaphors allow imagination to roam more freely only loosely tethered to definitions. Whereas the glass ceiling evokes the idea of a barrier preventing access to management grades the sticky floor focuses attention on the first stage of progression where discrimination can be experienced.

Trippingly on the tongue.