Glass Ceilings and Catfights: Career Barriers for Women in Academics

Women continue to struggle to reach parity in the workplace, constantly hitting their heads on the "glass ceiling." The inability to break through this barrier may lead women to develop covert actions to create an advantage over their competition. The existing literature on the relationships of women and men in the workplace provides some insight to the struggles that occur when one gender could be considered a professional minority. In addition, some researchers have studied the working relationships of women in the business environment, but there is a deficiency in the literature of the working relationships among women in academic organizations. The purpose of this study was to explore the challenges of female relationships in the workplace, as women continue to dominate public community colleges, both as employees and as students. Psychodynamic theory was used as the theoretical framework for the study. Researchers sought to assess the perceptions of female non-instructional pro