Gender & Sexuality / Sociology Compass Issues / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Role Models, Glass Cliffs and Marissa Mayer: Should women be managing “as women” or “like men”?

Increasingly, a great deal of media coverage and public discussion focuses on the growing number of women in senior corporate positions. Women such as Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, and Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, have become renowned public figures whose success is held as an example of how far women have come in their struggle for gender equality. They are seen to have shattered the glass ceiling. Whilst this success shouldn’t be belittled, there remain problems with the media’s...