scriminations, harassments and restrictions usually imposed upon groups far, far fewer in number. Truly, recalling the earlier reference to women's nearly fifty-fifty sharing of the workforce with men, women are a minority only in terms of discrimination, not in terms of population percentage. Statistically, then, a case study of women's plight underscores the reality of glass ceiling discrimination more than that of, say, a study of African-Americans in the workforce. In the latter case, African-Americans comprise less than 15% of the general population, with less than half that number employed full time; there is no doubt that glass ceiling discrimination extends to black Americans, but the percentages involved are smaller, more susceptible to "margin of error" fluctuations, and less easy to point to as examples of general trends.
Still, when reviewing the history of glass ceiling discrimination, there is no escaping the fact that women's place and welfare in the American workforce is inextricably tied-in with that of African-Americans'. The turning point for both was the Second World War.
Prior to World War II, women - like blacks - were restricted to a few labor-intensive areas of the business world. The War drained America of her resources of white, male workers: women and other minorities moved into all areas of the workplace - and performed well. Still, at War's end, the white male worker was brought back, pushing their wartime substitutes out of the mainstream once again.
The social changes wrought by the War could not be completely reversed. Moreover, the unprecedented boom in America's postwar economy - which was to last until the early 1970s - quickly exhausted the supply of white males available to the workforce. U.S. business turned eagerly to women and minorities to fill out the swelling ranks of the economic juggernaut. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 did much to remove the illogical restrictions of dis...