Glass ceiling shattered?

Despite the assertions of the nation's top labor department official, local experts insist that women in Utah continue to hit business's glass ceiling.

Elaine Chao, U.S. Labor Department secretary, said during her keynote address at Sen. Orrin Hatch's Utah Women's Conference in Salt Lake City Monday that American women have "shattered the glass ceiling in corporations and hold nearly half of all executive and managerial jobs in the country."

Women-owned businesses are growing at twice the rate of other businesses, Chao said. The 1999 Census found that women-owned firms employed 27.5 million people and generated more than $3.6 trillion in sales. In a recent survey by the National Association of Women Business Owners, Utah was the third fastest-growing state in the growth of women-owned firms, and Salt Lake/Ogden ranked first among metropolitan areas.

Hatch, R-Utah, said women have made and continue to make great strides toward parity.

"Between 1980 and 2000, dental schools saw a 122 percent increase in women's enrollment, from 17 percent of the class to 38 percent," Hatch said. "Medical schools saw a 66 percent increase. Nearly half of those attending law school today are women."

And, Hatch said, "Though women have yet to reach the 'top' in some fields, they are increasingly exercising their entrepreneurial spirit."

Nancy Mitchell, executive director of the Women's Business Center at the Salt Lake Chamber, disputed Chao's "glass ceiling" remark and said that the reason many women in Utah exercise their "entrepreneurial spirit" is because they are unable to progress in existing companies.

"I don't think we have shattered the glass ceiling," Mitchell said. "As far as I'm concerned, there still exists a huge glass ceiling for women. There are only a few that are heads of major corporations.

"Here in Utah, many women are starting businesses because they have hit that ceiling, and there's nowhere else to go. So if they want to do something creative, or take some leadership roles, they have to start their own companies."

Mark Knold, senior economist with the Utah Department of Workforce Services, said no comparable figures exist documenting the percentage of women holding managerial or leadership positions in local companies. However, he said, "If women in Utah have made gains, it would be significant."

Mitchell maintained that women, especially in rural areas, still face discrimination and prejudice from their male supervisors or prospective small-business lenders.