When we decide to go to college at the age of 17 or 18, we may not understand the major life decisions that are heading our way. Upon your first years of college, you try to juggle making new friends, clubs, schoolwork, possibly a job, and getting a long with a potentially dreadful roommate. So many decisions are heading your way, and sometimes it is impossible to know if you are making the correct ones. Along with all of these choices that come with your first year of college, you are supposed to know what you want to do for the rest of your life by your second semester! I don’t know about you, but this is such a stressful, yet rewarding time for many. If you sit back and consider all the options that are right at your doorstep, it may be hard to choose which would be the right for you. Do I want to be a teacher like my mom? Or do I want to discover unchartered territory and take a risk with a career that is new to me? This is a wonderful time to be alive with the many opportunities that are available to students, especially women (But there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, too!).
Women are now filling occupations that were generally exclusive to men 30 or 40 years ago. More women are now pursuing careers that have typically been dominated by men for many years, such as accounting, STEM, law and the medical profession. This is awesome news to hear (especially since in some fields, like accounting, women have made nearly a 60% gain!). The matter that needs to be addressed, though, is that women need to receive equal pay for the same work and that women continue to pursue these careers that have been gender normed. There are many government sites that post information relating to professions women occupy and what the typical woman earns in a position compared to a man in the same position. It is disheartening to read that women make nearly $100 less than a typical man in the same position. This is one of the many aspects of the glass ceiling.
The glass ceiling is an invisible limit that women are unable to pass in corporations or other parts of the professional world. This limit is set by society to keep women in their place by not letting them receive job promotions, equal pay, etc. This issue is not addressed or talked about enough in society. Also, many careers that have been gender stereotyped as a woman’s profession, like being a secretary or a teacher, do not continue to show any change. No career should be gender stereotyped. It is important that people choose their profession based on what they want to do with their life, not what society has denoted as a gender norm. Women and men both need to ignore the gender norms of society and pursue careers that inspire them. You (usually) only get to make this decision once, so make it count.