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rainbow ceiling. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
rainbow ceiling, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
rainbow ceiling in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
rainbow (a reference to the rainbow flag, an international symbol of gay pride) + ceiling (suggesting a barrier to upward advancement)
Noun
rainbow ceiling
- An informal (and often unacknowledged) barrier to promotion or advancement, in employment and elsewhere, for gay and lesbian people.
2013 June 27, Niv Elis, “The Middle East’s first openly gay mayor?”, in The Jerusalem Post:Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz isn’t just Israel’s only openly gay parliamentarian, he’s the Middle East’s only openly gay parliamentarian (though he was preceded in that role by Uzi Even, who broke that particular rainbow ceiling in 2002).
- 2014, Chris, quoted in Conor Friedersdorf, "28 Distinct Takes on Gay Marriage and Stigma," The Atlantic, 15 April 2014:
- I am an out gay man in my late 20s. I consider myself a successfully "launched" millennial and I've made it my mission to break the rainbow ceiling wherever I work.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:rainbow ceiling.
Synonyms