Gender equality as a strategic corporate discourse: a critical analysis of the glass ceiling

Abstract

This study aims to examine how corporations construct gender equality as a strategic discourse while simultaneously reproducing barriers that restrict women’s access to senior leadership positions, commonly defined as the glass ceiling. It explores how equality-oriented language functions ideologically within corporate identity and institutional communication in Türkiye, where global indicators highlight gender gaps in leadership. Using Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, the study analyzes the 2024 annual and sustainability reports of five major corporations across sectors. Global data from the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Global Gender Gap Report provide contextual grounding for interpreting the persistence of leadership inequality. The analysis indicates that although gender equality is highly visible at the discursive level, it remains predominantly normative, symbolic and performance-oriented rather than transformative. Equality is framed through reputation building, sustainability commitments and ethical communication, yet these discourses do not substantially challenge existing gendered power relations or structural barriers to women’s leadership. The study demonstrates how corporate reports operate as ideological spaces in which gender equality discourse is mobilized to legitimize institutional identity. It offers a critical perspective on how organizations adopt equality narratives without enacting structural change, reinforcing symbolic commitments. By foregrounding the Turkish case as a hybrid context shaped by global corporate norms and local patriarchal traditions, the study shows how gender equality discourse is localized within this configuration. In doing so, it advances glass ceiling research by conceptualizing inequality as both a discursive and structural phenomenon, moving beyond predominantly Western and quantitatively oriented accounts.