The overall objective of our project was to provide women with the social skills to develop in a more autonomous and empowered way in work environments, so that they could increase their chances of breaking the glass ceiling and moving up the organisational chart of their organisations. At the same time we wanted women to improve their self-confidence. The aim was to reduce the huge gap in the number of women in positions of responsibility compared to men, thus bringing a feminine stamp to the way companies are managed and, ultimately, improving the employment situation of women in the EU. Specific objectives of the Breaking the Ceiling project were: • Understand the origin of the glass ceiling and the implications for women and society in general. • To understand the gender roles that construct this reality. • Deconstruct the corporate culture that hierarchically masculinised organisations. • Dismantle the mental structures that adapt women to this scheme. • To break down prejudices regarding the promotion of women to decision-making positions. • Understanding the value of soft skills and socio-emotional competencies in this process. • Involve all social actors in the fight against the glass ceiling.
The promotion of equality between women and men has always been a value for the European Union (see the Article 8 of the Treaty on the Founding of the EU or the Directive on Pay Transparency and Equal Pay recently approved by the European Commission). However, inequalities between men and women still remain a major problem, based on the most recent data regarding average employment rates, payments, or presence of women in leadership positions. When we applied for this project, the post-pandemic scenario was clearly showing that women were suffering the economic impact of the pandemic more than men (a situation that led to the new concept of “she-cession”). With Breaking the ceiling we wanted to address that specific constraint on women to rise to higher positions in their careers which comes from stereotypes on gender roles and is usually referred to as the "glass ceiling". Thus, our main focus was the issue of 'equality in decision-making', which is also high on the Union's political agenda. The way we wanted to address it was creating resources for developing soft skills that can help women in the battle of achieving and maintaining leadership positions at all decision-making levels in political, economic and public life.