During one of my commerce classes in Henry Angus Building, I glanced the attending students and I discovered a fun fact: most of the students are girls! They talked to their friends sitting beside them about the shopping of last weekend; They were light or heavy makeups; They were yoga pants or skirts, all looking like shining stars in the business world of the future.

As one of the girls, I know that there are challenges for women to survive in this man-dominant world. Saying man-dominant may be a little bit exaggerate, however, it would be hard to imagine that the board members are all women, instead of men in their middle ages. In fact, women in the top C-level jobs are stuck in 15%-16%, not even close to 50% and the number is no longer growing. With the world and our culture becoming more and more acceptable to women, I wonder why women only compose so little percentage of the top workforce.

In my opinion, there are several reasons. First, women face traditional domestic tasks. The burden of maintaining a family happy, clean and organised falls mainly upon on women’s shoulders. One of my mother’s friends, a MIT graduate, becomes a housewife with 3 kids after 5 years of marriage. Once married, women become less ambitious in workplace, longer for a stable, less demanding job to enable them spend more time with their family.

Moreover, under constant reinforcement from the world, female becomes unconfident in their capability.They assume they cannot become high achievers like men do because their family and friends tell them so. Especially when the status of a woman and her likability is negatively correlated. In a study, people hate their female bosses more than they hate their male bosses. The ambition and vigour of a woman in workplace strongly contracts how people perceive women in the past. Conservative people expect women to only become a gentle wife and a good mother, but refrain from those female bosses. So female get this kind of information thus resigned in pursuing status.

In summary, closing the gender gap needs efforts from both women and the world.