Shattering the glass ceiling and other barriers

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Shattering the glass ceiling and other barriers

Published: 28 Mar. 2025, 00:05

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Song Ji-hoon

The author is a sports reporter at the JoongAng Ilbo.

The term “glass ceiling” is a metaphor for the invisible yet formidable barriers that prevent women and other minorities from advancing to senior leadership positions despite having the qualifications to do so. The phrase was first printed by The Wall Street Journal, which used it in a 1979 article about Hewlett-Packard to describe the difficulties women faced in rising through the corporate ranks.

Zimbabwean candidate for the presidency of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Kirsty Coventry, left, is congratulated by IOC vice-president Nicole Hoevertsz after being elected during the 144th IOC Session on the day of the election of the next President of the International Olympic Committee, in Costa Navarino, Greece on March 20. [AFP/YONHAP]

But the expression itself was coined a year earlier, in 1978. At a panel discussion in New York, Marilyn Loden, an employee at New York Telephone Company, a predecessor of Verizon, used the term for the first time, arguing that “invisible glass ceilings” within organizations were obstructing women's career paths. Her pointed comment challenged a social atmosphere in which women were often seen as little more than “office ornaments” or second-tier staff.

As awareness of this “clearly unseen yet undeniably real” barrier grew, so too did the term’s usage. In 2013, The Economist began publishing an annual glass ceiling index, assessing gender equality in member nations of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Variants of the phrase soon followed: the stained glass ceiling to describe religious institutions’ exclusionary attitudes, and the bamboo ceiling to refer to discrimination against Asians in Western societies.

A new figure has recently emerged on the international sports stage as a “glass ceiling breaker.” On March 20, Zimbabwean Minister of Sport Kirsty Coventry, 41, was elected the next president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). In doing so, she shattered not one but two historic barriers — becoming the first woman and the first African to lead the IOC, a body long dominated by white men of European descent.

The modern Olympic Games, established 130 years ago by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, were conceived as a “celebration of male virtue,” with women explicitly excluded. That an African woman now holds the steering wheel of the very institution he created is nothing short of remarkable.

Coventry is no stranger to the IOC. She has served for years as an athletes’ representative and a member of the executive board, steadily building her credentials in sports governance. Her election is not a fluke or a symbolic gesture — it is the result of a clear recognition that she is capable of leading the IOC to a better future.

Marilyn Loden, a graduate of Syracuse University, repeatedly found herself passed over for promotion despite excelling in her job. She ultimately left her company without ever reaching an executive role, later lamenting that she had been “trapped beneath a glass ceiling.” One can only wonder what kind of conversation Loden might have with Coventry today, 47 years after she first gave voice to that now-famous phrase.

Translated using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.