Our view

By:

Shandra Jordan – Editor in Chief

Colleen Buhrer – Managing Editor

Joshua Pilkington – Sports Editor

Change takes time. Anybody can tell you that. But when you’re

sitting in a cubicle for 10 years while the guy who joined the

company last month gets that corner office with a window, it can

feel like it takes a long time.

The glass ceiling has been around basically since women entered

the work force and began to suggest that they – gasp – could be

successful managers, presidents and leaders just like men. It’s an

unspoken concept so ingrained into our society that, despite the

condemnation nearly everyone has for it (most people would be

loathe to suggest that women can’t perform leadership tasks as well

as men), it’s a concept that’s not going anywhere quickly.

It is so ingrained into our society and into companies that,

like universities, take time to change. Even the most enlightened

company will take time to bring gender balance to the workforce.

We’re making progress, but we’re not there yet, as today’s story

suggests.

Some other numbers to contemplate:

In the United Nations, women only make up 35.6 percent of staff

in the category of staff appointed to positions of one year or more

(www.un.org).

Women earn about 20 percent less than men, even accounting for

hours worked and marital status, according to a General Accounting

Office report released in November.

The Board of Directors of Hewlett Packard lists six of its 14

members as women, including its chairman and CEO, according to the

HP Web site. That’s just less than 43 percent.

So the fact remains that while companies and universities are

aware of the problem and working to find a solution, it’s not here

yet. We guess we just have to be patient.