The Glass Ceiling Revisited: Moving Beyond Discrimination in the Study of Gender in Public Organizations

Gender continues to shape organizational life in profound ways. Theorizing about gender in public institutions has been scarce. This article is an attempt to reinsert gender in our research agenda. First, macro-level theories of gender in organizations are discussed; then, the literature in public adminis-tration is surveyed. The author contends that the theory of representative bureaucracy provides a tremendous theoretical platform for understanding gender’s sociocultural forces as well as normative avenues and prospects for change. Such an approach will move us beyond description (i.e., lack of representation) to a better understanding of how gender is deployed and acquires signification in organizational life. Keywords glass ceiling, discrimination, gender, representative bureaucracy Historically, men and women have occupied divergent positions in organiza-tions; women often assume subordinate roles. Such a pattern of stratificatio