Beyond the Glass Ceiling: The Maternal Wall as a Barrier to Gender Equality
![handle is hein.journals/tjeflr26 and id is 9 raw text is: SYMPOSIUM ARTICLES
BEYOND THE GLASS CEILING: THE
MATERNAL WALL AS A BARRIER TO
GENDER EQUALITY
Joan C. Williams*
My subject is motherhood. More specifically, the intertwin-
ing of motherhood, economic vulnerability, and social stigma.
We've all heard about the glass ceiling and I'm sad to say that the
glass ceiling is alive and well in America. But most women never
get near it because they are stopped long before by the maternal
wall.
Over eighty percent of women become mothers.' And al-
though the wage gap between men and women is actually nar-
rowing, the wage gap between mothers and other adults has
actually risen in recent decades. Although young women now
earn about ninety percent of the wages of men, mothers still earn
only about sixty percent of the wages of fathers.2 This is what's
called the family gap, as distinguished from the wage gap.
Much of this family gap stems from the ways we organize the
relationship of market work to family work. We still define the
ideal worker as someone who starts to work in early adulthood
and works full-time, full force, for forty years straight, taking no
time off for childbearing, childrearing, or really anything else.
That's not an ungendered norm. Because, after all, who needs
time off for childbirth? It's women. And who needs time off for
childcare? American women still do seventy to eighty percent of
it.3 In my book Unbending Gender, I argue that designing work-
* Professor of Law, American University, Washington College of Law; Execu-
tive Director, Program on Gender Work and Family. This essay is based on the
keynote address delivered at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law Third Annual
Women and the Law Conference and the first annual Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lecture
at Thomas Jefferson School of Law on April 25, 2003.
1. Sara Raley & Suzanne Bianchi, Tabulations based on the 2001 March Current
Population Survey, for the Program on Gender, Work & Family (on file with
author).
2. Jane Waldfogel, The Family Gap for Young Women in the U.S. and Britain:
Can Maternity Leave Make a Difference?, 16 J. LABOR ECON. 505, 507 (1998).
3. JOAN WILLIAMS, UNBENDING GENDER: WHY WORK AND FAMILY CONFLICT
AND WHAT 'TO Do ABOUT IT 2 (2000) [hereinafter WILLIAMS, UNBENDING
GENDER].](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/tjeflr26&div=7&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Beyond the Glass Ceiling: The Maternal Wall as a Barrier to Gender Equality
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