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Seven Women Who Broke Glass Ceilings in U.S. Politics Before Hillary Clinton
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/7_women_who_broke_glass_ceiling_us_polit
ics_before_hillary_20160731/
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Posted on Jul 31, 2016
By Juan Cole
This post originally ran on Truthdig contributor Juan Cole's
website(http://www.juancole.com/2016/07/firsts-women-politics.html) .
As I pointed
out(http://www.juancole.com/2016/06/welcome-america-president.html ;) , it is
all very nice that Hillary Clinton is the first American woman to be
nominated as the standard-bearer for her party's presidential bid, but 11
Muslim women have already served [in their countries].
Women comprise 51% of the US population but they are only roughly 20% of
Congress.
Only 14% of interviewees(http://www.womensmediacenter.com/pages/the-problem
) on Sunday news talk shows are women.
That said, it is a great moment for women's rights in the US.
Here are some people who helped break through the glass ceiling over the
decades:
Jeanette Rankin
(http://history.house.gov/People/Listing/R/RANKIN,-Jeannette-%28R000055%29/
) was the first woman elected to Congress, from Montana in 1916. She later
cast the lone vote against entering World War I.
Ophelia Wyatt Caraway, a Democrat from Arkansas,
(http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-elected-female-senator ;)
was the first woman elected to the US Senate, in 1932.
Frances Perkins(http://www.biography.com/people/frances-perkins-9437840 ;)
was the first woman to serve as a cabinet secretary. President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt appointed her secretary of labor in 1933, and she made
important contributions to social security and the New Deal.
Eugenie M.
Anderson(http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/03/world/eugenie-anderson-87-first-w
oman-to-be-us-ambassador.html) , who in 1949 became the first woman
appointed a United States Ambassador. She was sent to Denmark by the Truman
administration.
Geraldine Ferraro
(http://www.biography.com/people/geraldine-a-ferraro-9293789 ;) was the
first woman to run for vice president, in 1984. She ran on the ticket with
Walter Mondale.
Air Force Gen. Lori Robinson has become head of the U.S. Northern Command,
the first
woman(http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/2016/04/29/senate-first-fe
male-combatant-command-robinson/83693122/ ) to to serve as combatant
commander.
Last week, July 2016, Carla
Hayden(http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/senate-confirms-carla-hayden-firs
t-woman-african-american-named-librarian-congress/) became the first woman
and the first African-American to serve as Librarian of Congress.
The United States's constitution was a frontier experiment, aiming at
representative government. Only over time did its implied inclusivity
become realized, even if very imperfectly. We just came a step closer to
that inclusivity.
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