Catherine The Great Glass Ceiling

There are certain barriers that people are faced with in order to reach a successful point in their life, unfortunately, while most of these are unfair, they have not changed over time. A barrier that people all over the world have to face to this day is being a woman and being that of a foreign culture. This is seemingly the most prominent in the current day American culture. However, this ideal was still incredibly present in the Russian culture of the seventeen hundreds. There were few and far in between that were able to overcome this hardship during this time period. Catherine the Great shattered through “the glass ceiling” of her time. The glass ceiling is defined as “an intangible barrier within a hierarchy that prevents women or minorities …show more content…
To understand this, one first needs to come to terms with what leadership truly means. According to Katie Christy, leadership does not have a one way approach; it is about adapting and making the best of the environment you are put into. (citation) Catherine, who originally operated under the rule of her husband, Duke Peter, created so many positive changes in her country that her gender and foreign heritage was overlooked. Due to the fact that the gender barrier and stereotypes were so strong, this can only lead one to believe that Catherine created a lasting impact that was held so highly within their society that these could be ignored. There were few men that could lift a nation is such a positive manor, let alone women, for this reason Catherine the Great is the greatest world power not only of her time, but to current day. Catherine has accomplished so much during her time of reign and even before that point as well. Before she even reached the throne she operated behind the scenes under her husband Peter the Great. The Russian community recognized that she was much more competent of running the country than her husband and she was placed into rule. Taking into consideration that the Russian people were able to look beyond the fact that …show more content…
This may not seem to be as prevalent in today’s life style, however one must consider the way of life that was back when Catherine ruled. During the time period that Catherine was ruling Russia, most people still believed that a women’s place was in the home. The fact that she was able to overcome this incredible barrier is the biggest testament to her ability to lead as a world power. An integral part of being a leader is being able to find a positive outcome from a negative situation. She proved herself in this category when the country was faced with a multitude of revolts at their door step. Catherine took each of these detrimental situations and helped her country rise out of them. Overall, Catherine created a wholesome country from what was once a country barely able to keep its’s own boarders held down. She ruled with a firm, yet gentle approach; this in turn resulted in credible outcomes that pushed the country to be the best that it could be. It did not matter if Catherine was working toward equality in her country or working to make the country a stabilized world power, she truly always had the country’s best interest in mind. For these uplifting reasons Catherine the Great is not only the greatest but also the most underrated world power of her time period and the current time period as