The Gender Discrimination through Glass Metaphors

an Approach to Women’s Situation in Senior Management of Public Administration in Mexico

Abstract

The problem addressed in this research lies in vertical and horizontal segregation, which is evidenced in the low proportion of women in management positions in Pu-blic Administration in Mexico, which also decreases as it reaches top level positions. Culture, gender stereotypes and organiza-tion and public policies for gender equality were considered as elements of analysis; We use metaphors such as: sticky floor, glass ceiling, walls, and glass cliff to explain the ways in which gender discrimination takes place. One of the main findings is that social codes permeate behaviors, norms, and institutional values and through them is how gender discrimination is incorpora-ted into organizational procedures, which affects the women’s recruitment process. However, this is not the only limitation, since despite the law reforms that force the three levels of government to apply gender parity the situation does not change for them. The research approach is qualitative and descriptive. The unit of analysis is Pu-blic Administration in Mexico. The data collection was carried out through docu-ments for documentary analysis and the analysis techniques are: content analysis and analytical induction. The theoretical support is gender perspective.