as well. The invisible obstacles (glass ceiling/sticky floor/leaky pipeline) that prevent women from moving up the ladder evidently do not apply to men.\cite{10} \cite{Kamberidou_2008b} In other words, many men in female occupations encounter a ``glass escalator'', an invisible pressure and encouragement to move up in their professions, despite the fact that they only make up a small percentage.

A new study blames ``gender fatigue'' \cite{4} \cite{Kelan_2010} for the failure of companies and organization to increase the number of women reaching executive ranks. Namely, gender fatigue refers to the loss of energy to acknowledge and oppose gender discrimination as well as the lack of interest to tackle afresh something no longer perceived as a problem.\cite{4,11} \cite{Kelan_2010, Merriman_2010} Unquestionably women have come a long way in the workplace, helped by legislation and gender mainstreaming policies, the recognition by many companies that diversity is essential, etc. But diversity's move into the mainstream corporate world has its disadvantages as well. It can make more subtle discrimination harder to spot and tougher to deal with. ``If you talk to people today in the workplace they construct the workplace as gender neutral. They assume that gender no longer matters in 2009 because the issue has long been solved,'' argues Elisabeth Kelan author of the new book, ``Performing Gender at Work.'' (2010). Kelan calls this phenomenon ``gender fatigue,'' which actually refers to the individual's feelings of weariness or of being too drained out to discuss gender discrimination and social bias. Namely, the lack of energy to repeatedly reconstruct the workplace as gender neutral, despite the fact that discrimination continues to exist.

A qualitative study conducted, prior to the publication of her book, in two large organisations/companies in Information Communication Technology (ICT) in Switzerland, that promote themselves as having leading-edge policies and programs for gender equality, reveals that many of their employees experience gender fatigue. Specifically, in her research, Dr. Elisabeth Kelan, a lecturer in Work and Organisations in the Department of Management at King's College in London, conducted 26 qualitative in-depth interviews with the staff, 16 men and 10 women, as well as job-based observations (job-shadowing) of 16 employees. The age range of the participants was 25 to 54, the majority of which were in their late thirties. The ICT sector was chosen for this study because it is commonly perceived as an egalitarian and gender neutral sector, namely a true meritocracy sector where gender should not matter. One need point out, however, that this is also a sector which is male dominated and where there is a 25\% gender pay gap.

The study examined the ways in which workers navigated the dilemma of simultaneously acknowledging gender discrimination in the workplace whilst holding the view that their workplace is gender neutral. Most of the participants were reluctant to even talk about gender, an attitude which could lead to totally dismissing the relevance of gender in the workplace, namely stabilize women's under-representation. As observed in the study, younger women in particular are the ones who experience ``gender fatigue'' in the workplace. Gender mainstreaming has given the impression that gender issues at work have been resolved, making more subtle discrimination harder to spot, Kelan argues and in her research she claims that women confront more subtle gender bias in the workplace, which is much harder to deal with especially since younger women are not engaged in discussions in women's networks: ``Younger women find it difficult to connect to women's networks in the workplace, because they view these networks as something that belonged to their mother's generation,'' said Kelan when interviewed by Reuters, \cite{5} \cite{Merriman_2009}.

Although companies have been taking measures to eliminate gender discrimination by appointing diversity officers and running diversity programs— that are seen by many people in the workplace as helping to ensure equality— women are still a minority in top management positions, confront difficulties in their careers and are forced to abandon them (leaky pipeline) when they confront the life-