No, Sec. Hillary Clinton Did Not “Shatter the Glass Ceiling”

With the historic nomination of Sec. Clinton as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, making her the first woman ever nominated by a major party for the Country’s top office, there has been one phrase that has been almost inescapable this last week: “Hillary Clinton has shattered the glass ceiling.” When she appeared on a jumbo-tron at the Democratic National Convention, the beginning of her video entrance was marked digital effects showing the current screen shattering into shards of glass that fell out of view to the sound of a baseball bat being swung through a picture window to reveal the then future nominee’s face. In the wake of the Convention, especially after Sec. Clinton’s acceptance speech, news outlets from predictably sensationalizing (CNN, New York Times, and The Huffington Post) to the typically “just the facts” and social justice savvy (PBS, Politico, and Mother Jones) were churning out articles like “Breaking the Ultimate Glass Ceiling (CNN)” and “Glass Ceiling, Shattered: Watch Hillary Clinton’s Acceptance Speech (Mother Jones).”