Glass Ceiling

Labor Secretary Lynn Martin outlined this four-point program 'to dismantle, to remove and to shatter' the so-called 'glass ceiling' that bars women and minorities from advancing up the corporate ladder: Further reviews of working conditions and hiring practices such as those conducted by the Labor Department at nine U.S. firms. An internal effort to educate Labor Department officials on the glass-ceiling issue.

Margaret Thatcher was a historic, transformational figure who did many amazing and contradictory things in her life. She was a free market authoritarian who metaphorically bashed her opponents with her famous handbag until they submitted to her will. In her drive to dig Britain out of its post-war doldrums and to reverse what she saw as its horrifying descent into Socialism, she ignored the misery caused by her policies as the country was transformed from a welfare state to a more brutal, capitalist endeavor.

Margaret Thatcher was a historic, transformational figure who did many amazing and contradictory things in her life. She was a free market authoritarian who metaphorically bashed her opponents with her famous handbag until they submitted to her will. In her drive to dig Britain out of its post-war doldrums and to reverse what she saw as its horrifying descent into Socialism, she ignored the misery caused by her policies as the country was transformed from a welfare state to a more brutal, capitalist endeavor.

Joyce D. Miller, who rose from an assembly line job to the top ranks of American labor as the first woman on the AFL-CIO executive council, died June 30 in Washington. She was 84. The cause was a stroke, said her daughter, Rebecca Miller. Miller was an advocate for women in the workplace for more than three decades. A divorced mother of three, she worked her way up to leadership positions in the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America during the 1960s and '70s. As the women's movement gathered strength, she helped found the Coalition of Labor Union Women in 1974 and became its president in 1977.

In most respects, it was a typical mob shootout: members of feuding clans facing down their rivals on the main street of the small town of Lauro, exchanging gunfire from their cars until three people lay dead and four others wounded. The difference, though, was that the battle between the Cava and Graziano families involved women only. As townspeople looked on in horror, two mothers in their 50s and a 16-year-old girl were slain in their Audi on the streets of the Naples area community.

Anita K. Blair does a disservice to many struggling, educated, skilled women in "Shattering the Myth of the Glass Ceiling" (Commentary, May 7). Affirmative action should not be defined as merely opening doors of opportunity, nor should the glass ceiling be called a myth. Doors may be open wide or merely a crack, and of those who squeeze through the door, most remain below the glass ceiling. Much depends on the profession and whether it is predominantly male. Women represent a vast range of specialized skills, so why are some underpaid and thwarted in attempts to advance?

Labor Secretary Lynn Martin conceded Tuesday that little has changed since she vowed a year ago to help women and minorities land America's top corporate jobs. "We continue to find a general absence of minorities and women at the highest levels in the corporate work force, in the developmental programs and in the credential-building assignments," she said at a news conference to release "Pipelines of Progress: A Status Report on the Glass Ceiling."

Jill Elikann Barad became marketing director for Mattel's popular Barbie doll in 1982, and she and the plastic clotheshorse have shared the fast track ever since. Mattel Inc., based in El Segundo, is that rare company that historically has moved women into key positions, and Barad, who turned 45 last week, has enjoyed a particularly meteoric ascent.

When Veronique Brunard graduated from college to begin a career in public relations, she expected great things. But two years in the working world taught her that not everyone would take her seriously--especially, she believes, her male supervisors. Frustrated by her lack of progress, she returned to school to study for a master's degree in business administration. She hopes the additional training and financial knowledge will make an impression on future bosses.

"We've made scads of progress," said a woman who has reached the ranks of upper management in a large corporation. "There are more women in the organization to draw on, and the culture accepts women now. As even more women come in, even more assimilation will occur. My theory is that time will heal all wounds." "Yes," replied her young lunch companion. "But I'll be dead by then." Young women are being encouraged to set their sights on top corporate positions and "go for it."

If Mitt Romney wins the presidential election this fall, he'll have Harry Reid partly to thank. The Republican presidential nominee and the Senate Democratic leader don't have much in common politically. But they're both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - that is, they're both Mormons. So whenever officials of the LDS church are asked about the once-common concern that a Mormon president might take orders from Salt Lake City, they have a ready answer: Just look at Harry Reid.

WASHINGTON — There were no silver spoons, but lots of school loans. Grandmother worked her way up the ranks at the bank. Later, it took two incomes to pay the condo mortgage and the bills. If all this doesn't sound familiar, it soon will. As he heads into a faceoff with Republican Mitt Romney, President Obama's speeches are revisiting parts of the life story that helped propel his rise. There are nods to his humble beginnings, his hardworking grandmother and the stresses of debt — in short, stories that best connect with the middle-class voters his reelection may depend on. "Michelle and I, we've been in your shoes," the president told students Tuesday at the University of North Carolina as he called on Congress to extend a break in school loan interest rates.

Laura Ziskin, a veteran film producer who helped break Hollywood's glass ceiling for women, has died. She was 61. Ziskin died Sunday of breast cancer at her home in Los Angeles, said a spokesman at Sony Pictures, where she had a producing deal and made many of her movies in recent years. Ziskin, who had fought a seven-year battle with the disease, also founded a nonprofit televised event, Stand Up to Cancer, that has raised more than $200 million for cancer research. Best known for producing all the films in the "Spider-Man" franchise — including the upcoming release "The Amazing Spider-Man" — Ziskin had a profound effect on what contemporary moviegoers watch.

Crews of hundreds can typically spend years making a single animated feature — and it's not uncommon during what "Kung Fu Panda 2" director Jennifer Yuh Nelson describes as a "messy, creative process" for a director to be fired midway through a production. It happened to Jan Pinkava, who was directing 2007's "Ratatouille" before Brad Bird took over the Oscar-winning Pixar film. And it happened to Chris Sanders ("How to Train Your Dragon"), who was removed from Disney's "American Dog" in 2006, before it was reimagined as "Bolt.

Blunt, irascible, argumentative. Those words have long been used to describe Helen Thomas, the grande dame of the White House press corps, particularly in recent years as her questions became less and less coherent. Now, a career spanning 10 presidencies and nearly half a century has come to an end over her own terrible answer to a question about Israeli-Palestinian relations. After decades as a reporter for United Press International, Thomas had become a columnist for Hearst Corp.

Women have made little progress in breaking the glass ceiling at California's top publicly traded companies, according to a report scheduled to be released today. Citing "a bleak picture of the progress of women in corporate leadership" over the last five years, the report said that women held just 10.6% of executive positions and board seats at the state's biggest companies this year, a slight decline over 2008. The survey of California's 400 largest publicly traded companies by UC Davis and a women's advocacy and networking organization found that the number of women in top leadership positions had barely budged since the study began in 2005.

Urban planner Carol Hoffman was explaining to her boss that she would need a few weeks of leave time--she was about to have a baby. But he had news for her: It didn't work that way, not in his shop. You leave, lady, you leave for good, for a baby or whatever. She was fired. It wasn't the first time Hoffman, now an Irvine Co. vice president, was faced with sexist attitudes from an incompetent male boss. And this didn't happen in the '50s, this was 1973.

Someone asked me what I thought of the recently released report on women in the workplace published by the Glass Ceiling Commission. At the time, I was dealing with a $55-million variance in my 1995 operating budget, I had to come up with strategies for improving customer service while reducing costs, and, in the midst of these challenges, I had a vendor requesting payment of an additional $1.75-million cost overrun for a project still in progress.

In most respects, it was a typical mob shootout: members of feuding clans facing down their rivals on the main street of the small town of Lauro, exchanging gunfire from their cars until three people lay dead and four others wounded. The difference, though, was that the battle between the Cava and Graziano families involved women only. As townspeople looked on in horror, two mothers in their 50s and a 16-year-old girl were slain in their Audi on the streets of the Naples area community.

Re: "For black men, a redefining moment?," Nov. 12 In order to break through a glass ceiling, you have to get close enough to touch it first, and the best ladder is and always will be a good education. If Barack Obama does nothing else in his hopefully eight years as president but inspire a generation of young African American men to aspire to be Harvard-trained constitutional law professors instead of USC-trained professional athletes or street-smart record producers, he will have done more than enough.