THIS ISSUE of the Archives presents an article by Phillips' on issues confronting women dermatologists and women in medicine and a survey by Pincus2 examining the attitudes of professors of dermatology toward career development for women in that field. Both articles address the successful recruitment of women into medicine, along with women physicians' inability to break through the so-called glass ceiling and into senior faculty and administrative ranks. Clinical medicine is not the only field in which this glass ceiling phenomenon has been observed. Similar situations exist in professions as diverse as science3 (see also Female Scientists Making Few Gains. The Boston Globe; January 17, 1994:43), law,4 and business.5
Two decades ago, when women first began to enter the workplace in great numbers, it was theorized that the numbers of women would eventually attain a critical mass that would ensure their advancement into powerful positions. Women