when hillary clinton ran for president in 2008 and 2016 she repeatedly spoke of her goal of shattering the highest hardest glass ceiling by becoming america s first female president vice president kamala harris shattered the second highest glass ceiling in the u s when she became the first female and first black and south asian vice president on jan 20 2021 she was also the first woman and first black and south asian attorney general of california as well as the first black woman to be elected district attorney of san francisco 7
the number of female chief executive officers leading fortune 500 companies in 2023 in the previous year there were 44 of them 8the glass ceiling vs the glass cliffthe glass cliff is a closely related term but refers to a phenomenon wherein women tend to be promoted to positions of power during times of crises when failure is more likely this could occur in fields as diverse as finance politics technology and academia while the more common glass ceiling presents a barrier to reaching the highest executive levels within their respective organizations the glass cliff addresses the tendency to place women who have broken through it into precarious positions making it likely their performance will falter as if they are at risk of falling off a cliff had hillary clinton won the presidential election in 2008 which was the height of the great recession she might have been seen as the victim of the glass cliff the term was coined by professors michelle k ryan and alexander haslam of the university of exeter united kingdom in 2004 ryan and haslam documented this phenomenon extensively in a study of great britain s ftse 100 companies 9example of the glass ceilingthere are numerous examples of instances where individuals encountered and have been able to shatter the glass ceiling as noted above hillary clinton became the first woman to secure the democratic nomination when she ran for president during the 2016 election moreover kamala harris shattered the glass ceiling when she became the first woman to be elected as u s vice president under president joe biden harris was also the first black and south asian person to be elected to the position janet yellen became the first female treasury secretary after being nominated by president biden and sworn in on jan 26 2021 this isn t the first glass ceiling yellen has broken either she was also the first woman to head the federal reserve a role she held during president barack obama s administration 10