This sketch, entitled The Glass Ceiling: A Game for Girls, is a sketch made for Comedy Central’s website. The structure of the sketch follows a faux commercial for a board game targeted towards young women. The sketch features many tropes of television advertisements marketed towards children, girls in particular: cheery narrator, catchy upbeat song, abundance of traditionally feminine colors, etc. The goal of the board game is to move your character along the board, presumably by rolling dice and picking up cards, to eventually have them climb atop a “glass ceiling”. The surface level relevance of the board game’s purpose is fairly clear. It mirrors the goal of women in the workplace to climb to positions of management within companies; something that is very difficult due to rampant sexism from those in positions of power who passively act to hinder professional progress of women in the company. It is well documented that there are unspoken barriers to women when it comes to rising to managerial positions, and the eventual futility of the little girls’ attempt at reaching the top of the physical glass ceiling within the game reflects that fact. But, while some may feel that the sketch is making a mockery of isolated incidents of professional sexism, it actually makes a much more profound commentary on the indoctrination of young women into a prejudiced workplace culture.
The first time we hear the little girls speak, we hear them articulate their professional dreams. They list off typical careers that are viewed in high regard, such as engineer and lawyer. One of the girls, Stacy, says she wants to be “the nation’s number one investment banker”. This is met by the narrator condescendingly asking her if she really thinks she can be number one, as if the narrator knows that a woman could never hold that title. This is the viewers first introduction to the assumed inferiority of women that is prevalent but not often communicated. The reason why women aren’t perceived to be at the top of leadership positions in a given profession is hotly debated. Controversial Wayne State University professor Kingsley R Browne argues that this is due to the evolutionary traits possessed by men and women. In an article written for the Arizona Law Review, Professor Browne expresses that women are inherently less effective leaders than men as a whole due to their historical role as domesticated subordinates. He goes on to criticize the concept of gender inequality in the workplace as a whole, labeling it “white male anxiety”. This seems to imply that any attempt to point out a difference in the way men and women are treated in a professional setting is simply virtue signaling with no real substance. The sketch takes this idea and contests it by giving an active voice to passive prejudice. In response to the previously referenced comment by the narrator, Stacy responds, “why not?”. This interaction presents a theme that shows to be prevalent throughout the sketch: women slowly realizing that the deck is stacked against them, both literally in the sketch and metaphorically. Because the women in the sketch are so young, they are not yet aware of how passive sexism is widely ignored, and communicating it in such a blunt way makes it seem ridiculous to them. This technique is commonly used in feminist humor. In their 1980 book of essays entitled Pulling our Own Strings, comedians Gloria Kaufmann and Mary Kay Blakely describe the nature of feminist humor as didactic and pessimist; saying, “Not by explicit statement but by implicit posture, the expression of such humor attacks the unhealthy and oppressing idea cultivated for thousands of years…” (Kaufmann 14) In the case of this sketch, it isn’t alone what the narrator is saying, rather how dismissively she is saying it that is troubling to the children. Compare this interaction with how the girls react after getting cards that set them back in the board game again and again. They eventually react with anger, culminating with the girls chanting “break it” as one hits the ceiling game piece with her shoe after getting a card that left her unemployed after a sexual harassment scandal. This reflects how through a series of many sexist roadblocks; women have their ambition stripped away from them as they realize those in current managerial positions are more likely to view male candidates as serious contenders for positions. “None of these choices get you above the glass ceiling.” Laments Stacy, to which the narrator exclaims “Now you’re getting it!”.
The sketch also explores the ignorance of firms towards their female employees’ struggles in relation to institutionalized prejudices. This is evidenced by the choices that the girls are given when drawing a card from the deck. When one of the children draws a card from the deck describing a situation wherein she is sexually harassed by her boss, she is left with three options: go to HR, put up with it, or sleep with him. Two of these choices are clearly intended to be viewed as the incorrect way to put up with the situation, leading the viewer to expect that going to HR would provide a helpful solution. This assumption is then flipped, when after the girl chooses to go to HR, she ends up unemployed. Her game piece, which was once a smiling cartoon women dressed up for work, now changes to a cartoon woman lying down on the couch crying. This reflects the theme of intra-company departments being totally unhelpful when it comes to assisting victims in the workplace. Other examples from the sketch also reflect how those in positions of power or management abuse those positions in order to fit their sexist feelings. When one of the children draws a card, they are met with disappointment after finding out that their ivy league education emasculates their boss, preventing them from getting a promotion. Professor Browne asserts that incidents wherein men assert their dominance towards others in a workplace are a result of competitive drive, saying “Males also exhibit more competitive behavior, and they respond more positively than women to competitive situations. Competition significantly increases the intrinsic motivation of men, while it does not do so for women.” (Browne 1020). The problem with this statement is that it fails to acknowledge that competition in the workplace is not always a good thing. Browne paints this picture of a competitive male worker being motivated, determined, and hard working. While this may be true for some, he fails to realize that extreme competitiveness also goes hand in hand with overt aggression. That aggression manifests itself in different ways towards men and towards women. The sketch exposes this through the two previous card examples. When a male boss takes out his competitive aggression on a female employee, it does not result in yelling matches or one up-manship as it might for a male employee. It commonly manifests as sexual harassment, similar to the example illustrated in the sketch. This relationship is extremely relevant and can be illustrated by many current day issues, such as the Roger Ailes allegations of sexual assault.
The narrator in this sketch acts as a vessel for the sexist management that exists in the workplace. The narrator is constantly condescending to the children, saying “typical women” in a dismissive tone after one of the kids is confused after having to deal with extremely adult themes. As previously stated, she (the narrator) also questions one of girl’s abilities to become the number one investment banker, presumably due to her gender. It is also important to note that the narrator is a female adult voice. This is presumably to allow her to act as a sort of guidance for these young women, and teach them the harsh realities of the real world. However, it is not explicitly stated that she believes this reality is “harsh”. Her cheery demeanor and seeming pleasure in crushing the dreams of these kids shows that she is accepting of the double standards and unfair treatment of women in the workplace. Her apathetic, and almost supportive, views of sexism in the workplace paints her as the ideal worker for the sexist culture that women have to deal with. It is the narrator’s comedic delivery of the lines that really drives the point of the sketch home. She over-normalizes the prejudices that women deal with; which in turn brings light to these problems, and highlights how ludicrous it is that so little is said or done about these problems.
This normalization by the narrator allows for the isolated incidents presented in the sketch to be flipped to cultural commentary. It is not assumed that the narrator herself went through these horrible incidents described in the cards, but it is clear that she knows them. She knows them because she almost expects them. This allows the narrator to an indoctrination machine for these young motivated women to accept the harsh realities of their dreams. And that is how the sketch is enabled to make biting social commentary about young females in the workforce.
Works Cited
Browne, Kingsley R. "Sex and Temperament in Modern Society: A Darwinian View of the Glass
Ceiling and the Gender Gap." Arizona Law Review37.4 (1995): 971-1106.
Kaufman, Gloria J., and Mary Kay Blakely. Pulling Our Own Strings: Feminist Humor & Satire.
Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1980. Print.