Women in leadership and the bewildering glass ceiling

Geraldine Ferraro, a U.S. congresswoman and the first woman to run for U.S. vice president on a major party ticket, once stated that “some leaders are born women.”1 There is little doubt that statement is true. However, former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential bid against a male opponent who has never held public office has forced us to reflect on the state of women in leadership, particularly in our own fields of pharmacy, healthcare, and higher education. Throughout the campaign, Clinton was accosted by a barrage of misogynistic attacks concerning, among other things, her “stamina,” a none-too-subtle implication that as a woman she was too weak to serve in the nation’s highest office. Rather than being an outlier, this rhetoric typified the experience of working women.2 With a recent USA Today headline proclaiming “Sexism in the Workplace Is Worse Than You Thought,”3 it is clear that gender bias remains a challenge for women in the workplace, particularly as they try to move up the career ladder.