Gender and Elections

On March 5, 2020, US Senator Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the Democratic presidential primary contest, marking the departure of the last viable woman in the race. That evening, she spoke to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, who prompted Warren by noting that her loss “feels a little bit like a death knell in terms of the prospects of having a woman for president in our lifetimes.” Warren quickly rebuked that conclusion, arguing, “This cannot be the right answer. … It doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen.” She elaborated: “Look, here’s how I see this. You get in this fight, you know when you go into it there were multiple people who just said, this will be part of the problem. But you get in the fight because you just got to keep beating at it until you finally break the thing.” The “thing” to which Warren refers here is the highest, hardest glass ceiling in American politics: the United States presidency. For 233 years, that glass ceiling has remained unshattered, despite the many cracks that have come from women who waged presidential campaigns. But women have, in Warren’s words, stayed in the fight.