Overcoming Barriers

Abstract

After a childhood of limited educational opportunities, lack of proportional representation, along with social stigmas in addition to the institutional barriers, Latinas and Hispanic women who overcame them all to acquire a professional degree still have to deal with the lack of recruitment, retention, and opportunities for promotion in employment within higher educational institutions. Because of the reality of skin color, heavy accent, and the historical White male middle class, institutions throughout the social system have created barriers for Hispanic women/Latinas, barriers that continue to prevent them from holding a full-time or attaining a tenured position in academe. The following sections will describe each of the barriers that impede Hispanic women in their advancement in educational institutions. The author will address how an invisible barrier, or glass ceiling, concrete ceiling or concrete wall, labyrinth, sticky floor, gated community, female androgynous behavior, and Jezebel stereotypes prevent women from achieving leadership positions in the academic profession—although a few do make it. For those who do become leaders, the questions become, “How did they do it?” “What barriers did they overcome and what supports enabled them to succeed?”