Women in Tourism Industry: From Glass Ceiling Effect to #MeToo Movement

Nowadays, due to #MeToo movement the society becomes more and more aware of incidents of violence and discrimination in the working environment. Despite the rise of the twenty-first century, there are still struggles for basic human rights such as equality and freedom. The role of women has taken on a multidimensional character, but it is still not fully acknowledged by the society, being constantly questioned. Especially in the working environment, women often encounter obstacles in their professional development and must deal with inappropriate behaviors usually of sexual content. This paper aims to highlight two specific phenomena that afflict women during their professional careers: glass ceiling effect and sexual harassment. These phenomena are perpetuated within societies since stereotypes, prejudices, and taboos lead to the so-called gender discrimination, especially in the work environment. Hospitality and tourism could not be the exceptions since their human resources records indicate high numbers of women employees. Nonetheless, despite their abilities and skills, women do not acquire leadership and managerial positions due to maternity and family that appear to be a professional threat of employers. In addition, women often deal with situations of sexual harassment not only by their colleagues and employers but also by the customers. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop the theoretical and research background on glass ceiling effect and sexual harassment that involve the women of the tourism industry, while it discusses sociopsychological solutions that may contribute to the efforts of HRM to eliminate these two phenomena.