The Sticky Floor

Take the kitchen for example.

The sticky floor.

Most of the time stickiness is caused by residue left behind the adhesive substances such as soft drink glue or grease which by one way or another attached to your floor. None of the examples utilized in the book resonated with me. In the literature on gender discrimination the concept of sticky floors complements the concept of a glass ceiling. Salt residue will make a floor sticky.

Sticky floors can be described as the pattern that women are compared to men less likely to start to climb the job ladder. The term sticky floor is used to describe a discriminatory employment pattern that keeps a certain group of people at the bottom of the job scale. Most of the workers who experience the sticky floor are pink collar workers such as secretaries nurses or waitresses. The ph of a chemical is what removes soils from the surface.

The sticky floor refers to women who occupy low paying low mobility positions such as clerical and administrative assistants mental health care and child care workers and service and. In both cases a different cleaning solution is needed to remove the tacky film. Luckily in both cases the stickiness is caused by the same issue ph. The sticky floor concept is as the name describes implying there is less of a glass ceiling than one may have thought previously but rather as a woman that i am somehow unknowingly sabotaging my own efforts to achieve that senior level position.

Expression used as a metaphor to point to a discriminatory employment pattern that keeps workers mainly women in the lower ranks of the job scale with low mobility and invisible barriers to career advancement.