The Glass Ceiling

On November 8th, 2016, Americans will go to the polls and choose a new President.

Will we finally join India, the UK, Germany and other countries and choose a woman to be our head of state?

8 years ago, Democrats faced a choice between 2 firsts, a woman or a black man.  The party chose the black man, Barack Obama, who went on to become our first Black President.

The excitement was palpable.  You could feel the excitement, a black man in the White House? so many of us did not believe it would happen.

We were afraid to believe the polls, we were afraid he would be assassinated even before he was elected. We were afraid of so many things.

He was elected, and the one fear that most of us did not have, came to be. A Party that refused to accept the legitimacy of his Presidency and fought against him every day, up to and including not holding hearings on his Supreme Court nominee.  (A party which is now in shambles because of their presidential nominee—a party which if we are lucky will cease to exist and be replaced with a Conservative Party that can honestly say it is the Party of Lincoln).

And so we now face in 2016, another first.  Finally there is a woman on the ballot.

Some of us, especially those of a certain age are extremely excited.

Some of us, those of a younger age that have not faced the prejudice of being a woman in this country are not very excited.  Their attitude is "no big deal."  They have not yet faced not getting a job or promotion because it is given to a less qualified man.  If HRC is not elected they will face that ugly situation and will finally understand.

When Hillary Clinton did not win the Democratic nomination in 2008, she said, "Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it, and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time."

Well it was not easier, thanks in part to the GOP’s war against her, a war fought for over 30 years and culminating in a Republican Party’s nominee from whose lips come things never heard before in a presidential campaign.  She is days away from shattering that ceiling, days away from this country joining so many others that have or have had a woman President or Prime Minister.  Days away from showing that in the United States anything is still possible.

But to show us that she knows that glass ceiling is still there for so many, she chose a venue for her election night party that literally has a glass ceiling, The Javits Center.

THE JAVITS CENTER, NYC