Today's Broadcast

Topic: Glass houses & glass ceiling

Today we mark the birth of Philip Johnson, the architect who was born on this date in 1906.

One of the most influential architects of the 20th century, Johnson is remembered for (among other things) designing the glass house in Connecticut in which he lived and died. This modern edifice is viewed by historians as the epitome of International style. Appropriately, versions of the proverb people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones—meaning, roughly, don't blame others for faults which you yourself have—are found in Swedish, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Hebrew. 

Although the glass houses warning was used back in the 14th century by Chaucer, it wasn't until 1984 that the phrase glass ceiling was spotted in print, in an article in Adweek by Gay Bryant.

Bryant glossed her use of the term this way: "[women] are in the top of middle management and they're stopping and getting stuck. There isn't enough room for all those women at the top." Two years later, Wall Street Journal reporters wrote an article titled: The Glass Ceiling: Why women can't seem to break the invisible barrier that blocks them from the top jobs. Since then, glass ceiling has become a well-established shorthand for the intangible barrier within a hierarchy that prevents women or minorities from obtaining upper-level positions.

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