Shattered, Cracked, or Firmly Intact?

Women and the Executive Glass Ceiling Worldwide

Farida Jalalzai

Most comprehensive study of women in executive office, exploring every region of the globe over the past fifty years
Compares male and female executives in same countries to assess differences
Examines how gender is embedded within institutions and processes
Investigates failed female candidacies for executive office

Shattered, Cracked, or Firmly Intact?

Women and the Executive Glass Ceiling Worldwide

Farida Jalalzai

Description

How do men's and women's paths to political office differ? Once in office, are women's powers more constrained that those of men?

The number of women in executive leadership positions has grown substantially over the past five decades, and women now govern in vastly different contexts around the world. But their climbs to such positions don't necessarily correspond with social status and the existence of gender equity.

In Shattered, Cracked, or Firmly Intact? Farida Jalalzai outlines important patterns related to women executive's paths, powers, and potential impacts. In doing so, she combines qualitative and quantitative analysis and explores both contexts in which women successfully gained executive power and those in which they did not.

The glass ceiling has truly shattered in Finland (where, to date, three different women have come to executive power), only cracked in the United Kingdom (with Margaret Thatcher as the only example of a female prime minister), and remains firmly intact in the United States. While women appear to have made substantial gains, they still face many obstacles in their pursuit of national executive office. Women, compared to their male counterparts, more often ascend to relatively weak posts and gain offices through appointment as opposed to popular election. When dominant women presidents do rise through popular vote, they still almost always hail from political families and from within unstable systems. Jalalzai asserts the importance of institutional features in contributing positive representational effects for women national leaders. Her analysis offers both a broad understanding of global dynamics of executive power as well as particulars about individual women leaders from every region of the globe over the past fifty years. Viewing gender as embedded within institutions and processes, this book provides an unprecedented and comprehensive view of the complex, contradictory, and multifaceted dimensions of women's national leadership.

Shattered, Cracked, or Firmly Intact?

Women and the Executive Glass Ceiling Worldwide

Farida Jalalzai

Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Women Executives-the Literature
Chapter 3 Women Executives-Positions, Selections, Systems, and Powers
Chapter 4 A More in Depth Analysis of Executive Positions and Paths
Chapter 5 General Backgrounds of Women Leaders
Chapter 6 Specific Pathways to Power: Political Families and Activism
Chapter 7 A Statistical Analysis of Women's Rule
Chapter 8 An Overview of Female Presidential Candidacies
Chapter 9 Close But Not Close Enough-the Historic Candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Ségolène Royal
Chapter 10 Conclusions on Women Executives and Directions for Future Research

Appendix
References

Shattered, Cracked, or Firmly Intact?

Women and the Executive Glass Ceiling Worldwide

Farida Jalalzai

Author Information

Farida Jalalzai is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Shattered, Cracked, or Firmly Intact?

Women and the Executive Glass Ceiling Worldwide

Farida Jalalzai

Reviews and Awards

"This is an outstanding book. Exhaustively researched, encyclopedic in scope, and elegantly written, Shattered, Cracked, or Firmly Intact? provides insights into the comparative study of gender and leadership in a way that is certain to catapult Farida Jalalzai into the forefront of gender studies and leadership studies."--Michael A. Genovese, Loyola Chair of Leadership and Professor of Political Science, Loyola Marymount University

"Shattered, Cracked or Firmly Intact? will further Farida Jalalzai's reputation as a leading scholar of women in executive office. This impressive book draws on a wealth of comparative data and provides unique insights into the backgrounds and pathways into power of women leaders, furthering our understanding of why women have broken the highest glass ceiling in some countries but not others. For anyone interested in gender politics, leadership, and pathways into power, this book is essential reading and is likely to remain the definitive work on this area for years to come."--Rainbow Murray, Reader in Politics, Queen Mary, University of London

"Methodologically innovative, and drawing on an impressive array of data, Shattered, Cracked, or Firmly Intact? not only addresses the cases of women who have acceded to office, but also compares them to their male predecessors and women who have run for but not won these positions. Timely and insightful, the book significantly advances research on gender and politics, executive roles, and leadership studies, and will thus be a standard reference for years to come."--Mona Lena Krook, Associate Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University