On Wednesday, members of the media openly wept as Hillary Clinton was nominated for president by the Democratic Party. They cheered; they screamed. Now, it appeared, Hillary Clinton had shattered the glass ceiling – and to prove it, the DNC unleashed a graphic of Hillary Clinton’s face shattering glass, which it has been known to do from time to time.
There are a few problems with this narrative.
1. Hillary Hasn’t Shattered Any Glass Ceiling. Prominent celebrities can help create a climate for change in destroying preconceptions and myths – see, for example, Jackie Robinson opening the Major Leagues to black Americans, or Will & Grace changing perceptions about gays. But there were no preconceptions about women that Hillary has changed. Americans already knew that a woman could be president. Three of the last five Secretaries of State have been women (Hillary, Condoleezza Rice, Madeleine Albright). Three of the nine Supreme Court justices are women (Kagan, Sotomayor, Ginsburg). We’ve had a female Speaker of the House. We’ve had female vice presidential candidates. Hillary was favored to win the nomination in 2008. This is not a shocking moment for America.
2. American Women Didn’t Need Hillary To Shatter A Glass Ceiling. My mother has been running companies for years; my wife is a doctor. Neither of them sat up nights wondering whether a woman could be president. Women earn a significant majority of associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Women could be a majority of the students in law schools as early as next year, according to the American Bar Association. Hillary has nothing to do with any of this.
3. Hillary Has Actually Set Women Back. Hillary isn’t a traditional female success story. She was born wealthy, married a powerful man, rode him to power, helped suppress females victimized by him, and then played the victim in order to become Senator from New York, Secretary of State, and finally a candidate for President of the United States. Hillary’s great female obstacles include ____ and _____. She didn’t truly have to balance motherhood and work. She never had to worry about carrying on a traditional marriage. Hillary is a terrible example of a woman overcoming common life problems for most American women.
4. Minorities Don’t Need Celebrity Figures To Shatter Glass Ceilings. While Americans love iconic stories like Jackie Robinson’s the fact is that minority communities don’t need iconic stories in order to shatter glass ceilings. As Dennis Prager has pointed out, Asian Americans have had zero representation in presidential politics, and they are the most successful subgroup in America economically. Jewish Americans have had precisely one vice presidential nominee, and they’ve been highly successful for decades, despite discrimination. You know what shatters glass ceilings? People fighting through them individually through achievement, and Americans being a tolerant and forthright people.
5. Barack Obama’s “Historic” Glass Ceiling Shattering Changed Nothing For Black Americans. There was widespread belief that the election of President Obama would change the self-perception of black Americans about the possibilities America offered. That hasn’t happened. Instead, feelings of discrimination have actually grown worse when it comes to the criminal justice system, and racial politics have become even more polarized. Obama has exploited racial divisions instead of using his historic election to alleviate them. Hillary would likely do the same with sex – any time she’s attacked, she’d fall back on the lie that she’s being targeted thanks to her gender.
No, Hillary hasn’t changed anything.
She may have made things worse. The last thing America needs is for its first female president to be a felonious harridan concerned with her own power above the priorities of the American people.
