SOPY Strategy For Breaking Glass Ceilings

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Glass Ceilings

Negative stereotypes create glass ceilings.

BIY Ceilings

Opportunity oblivion creates BIY ceilings — Build It Yourself.

Opportunity observance opens up the sky.

SOPY Strategy

Situations, Other People, You

Glass Ceilings

Glass ceilings exist for Black people, indigenous people, LGBTQ+ people, neurodivergent people, older people, people of color, people with disabilities, sensitive white men, white women, etc.

Glass ceilings exist in all kinds of situations. Some of the ceilings are unbreakable.

My mother created a family glass ceiling for me the day I was born
because I was her second daughter instead of her first son.
I could never be the son she wanted, so that glass ceiling was unbreakable.
After my loving father died, I walked away from my unloving mother and siblings.
I wasted more than a decade trying to get love from people
who had no intention of giving me love.

Breaking glass ceilings starts with breaking negative stereotypes.

Positive stereotypes ignore evidence of ineffectiveness, gaslighting, lies, etc. Positive stereotypes that ignore evidence may also need to be broken.

Glass ceilings can be easier to break when you:

Understand the situation

Recognize 3 groups of people in the situation

Present what the situation and each group of people require

When negative stereotypes are permanent, another solution becomes necessary.

Limiting your exposure to the negativity or involvement in the negativity

Walking away

Walking away from my mother and siblings
gave me the ability to go from
silenced voice to international voice.
Leaving that glass ceiling behind opened doors
to unimagined opportunities for me.

BIY Ceilings: Build It Yourself Ceilings

Build It Yourself ceilings exist anywhere you create them, including in person and online. You might not be able to dismantle BIY ceilings you’ve already built. You can stop creating BIY ceilings this minute to open up the sky instead.

SOPY Strategy

Situation

Glass ceilings exist in at least 2 stereotype situations:

Stereotypes about people

Stereotypes about roles

When I was in my 20s and living in Chicago,
the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times
listed classified employment ads as
men’s jobs and women’s jobs.

In today’s world, these employment openings
can be listed as men’s jobs or women’s jobs
inside of employers’ minds.

Other People

Each situation you are in probably includes 3 groups of people.

With you

Against you

Waiting for an invite

Many situations have bystanders who are just there and may not be in the 3 groups yet. More on bystanders below.

You

In each situation, your attitudes, behavior, and presentation can:

Invite loyalty and limit backlash.

Loyalty can break stereotypes.

Invite backlash and limit loyalty.

Backlash can use stereotypes.

People Stereotype Situation

Breaking negative stereotypes about you requires knowing how other people stereotype you.

My 5 blog posts list more than 1000 stereotypes. I went through the posts and counted more than 100 negative stereotypes about me. I now know which stereotypes to look for in people stereotype situations so I know make plans for breaking them.

What are the negative stereotypes about you? Make a list.

Negative Stereotypes Behind Bad & Ugly Gossip: People In General

Negative Stereotypes Behind Bad & Ugly Gossip: Workplaces

Negative Stereotypes Behind Bad & Ugly Gossip: Romance

Negative Stereotypes Behind Bad & Ugly Gossip: Ethnic, National, & Racial Identities

Negative Stereotypes Behind Bad & Ugly Gossip: Poverty

What To Do With Your Stereotype List

Pick a job where you had difficulty succeeding.

Choose the stereotypes from your list that were the most likely limits to your success.

Go to the attitudes, behavior, and presentation sections for ideas about breaking those stereotypes.

Role Stereotype Situation

Many corporations stereotype top executive roles as requiring “agentic” behaviors:

Assertiveness

Independence

Task-orientation

Results

Communal behaviors do not fit into these stereotypes:

Caring about feelings

Selflessness

“Sensitive Men: It’s Your Glass Ceiling Too”
Andrew O’Connell
Harvard Business Review
September 20, 2010

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“What’s Really Holding Women Back?”
Robin J. Ely
Irene Padavic
Harvard Business Review
March-April, 2020

Other People

3 Groups Of People

You

You can have an Open Up The Sky attitude or you can have a Build It Yourself attitude.

You can show Open Up The Sky behavior or you can show Build It Yourself behavior.

You can do an Open Up The Sky presentation or a you can do a Build It Yourself presentation.

Build It Yourself Attitude

“I can’t think of…” (“I can’t do research to find…”)

“No clue what you are talking about” (“No interest in getting a clue” or “Don’t know how to get a clue”)

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