Roberta, you make an excellent point that it should occur simultaneously.

Nursing is certainly a field where the glass escalator is quite evident. You make another good point about that women often enter professions such as nursing for the human contact aspect of the work and that administration is frequently at odds with this; however, it would seem that given our large numbers that we can devise a way of having a bit of both worlds. We still need to look out for our economic well-being.

Thanks for you comment Roberta.

An interesting conversation I had with a client recently speaks to the glass escalator in nursing. She’s a nurse who trains nurses and presents keynotes to executives across the healthcare industry. She said men ascend to leadership positions in nursing because women want to continue performing the bedside work — one-to-one with patients — that attracted them to nursing in the first place. Leadership isn’t compatible with bedside work. So this would seem to be a case of choice.