Kamala Harris’s apparent election as vice president is historic. However, it does not represent a shattering of the “glass ceiling,” because the glass ceiling is a political myth pushed by progressives for overtly political ends.
If, as appears likely, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-California) has been elected Vice President of the United States, it is, indeed, historic and should be recognized as such. But can we please dispense of the tired and shopworn notion that her election breaks some “barrier” and “glass ceiling”?
Nothing could be further from the truth. In the United States of America, there is no real “barrier” stopping women from professional achievement.
The “glass ceiling” is a political myth pushed by “progressive” or left-wing activists whose real aim is to increase the government’s control over our lives—ostensibly to end discrimination and eliminate social and economic disparities between men and women.
Female Representation. But it is 2020, not 1920 or 1820. Today in the United States, women are well represented in all walks of life and even predominant in some fields, such as pharmaceutical science (61 percent), medical and life sciences (71 percent), and public relations (63 percent).
“Women account for roughly 40% of the country’s physicians and surgeons, up from about 26% in the late 1990s,” reports Quartz “A full 57% of college degrees awarded in 2018 were given to women, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.”
Women outnumber men in law school. Three Supreme Court Justices—Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Amy Coney Barrett—are women.
President Trump’s Ambassador to the United Nations (Nikki Haley) was a woman. Presidents Obama and George W. Bush had female Secretaries of State (Susan Rice and Condoleezza Rice, respectively).
There are a record number of women—26 senators and 101 representatives—serving in Congress.
The “glass ceiling,” if it ever existed, was shattered a long time ago. Yet, numerous commentators have been falling over themselves to laud Harris’s election as a “breakthrough” achievement that lays waste to yet another “barrier.”
Harris herself, moreover, lauded Vice President Biden for having the “audacity to break one of the most substantial barriers that exists in our country: [by] select[ing] a woman as his vice president.”
Admittedly, this is good politics, but it’s also complete nonsense unsupported by any empirical evidence.
Disparities. It is true that women often earn less than men and that disparities still exist. But this is not because of “discrimination” and “sexism.”
Instead, it is because of professional and career choices that women sometimes make, which limit their time in the workforce and constrain their earnings and professional advancement.
For example, according to the U.S. Census Bureau:
Female attorneys work full-time, year-round on average more than the average for all working women (82 percent vs. 63 percent), but less than male attorneys (85 percent).
They also are more likely to work for the government and less likely to be self-employed than their male colleagues.
All this contributes to differences in median earnings between women and men, with a female-to-male earnings ratio for full-time, year-round attorneys of 76 percent, lower than the 80 percent average across all occupations.
As a wiseman once said, “facts are stubborn things.”
“Equal pay for women has been the law of the land for more than a half-century,” with a wide array of legal remedies available to litigants, writes Gerald Skoning in the Wall Street Journal.
Consequently, no one can legitimately claim women earn less than men for the same work.
Pay “disparities” between men and women generally reflect other factors such as interrupting a career to raise children, the types of jobs men and women on average choose, the type of education they have (sociology vs. engineering), etc.
Politics and History. So yes, the election of a female vice president is an historic milestone that should be duly noted. But let’s not pretend that Harris’s election represents some triumph over a genuine barrier—legal, cultural or otherwise—that she had to “break through” and “overcome.”
To the contrary: Harris surely benefited from the fact she is a woman and a woman of color, as they say, from a big and diverse state. Would Biden, after all, have selected her as his VP if she were a male senator representing, say, Montana?
Of course not.
Harris, remember, flopped in a big way during the Democratic primaries, where she failed to garner popular support—even amongst black women, who much preferred Joe Biden.
Antiquated Myth. Let us, then, retire the antiquated notion of a “glass ceiling” or “barrier” that women must “overcome.” This is a progressive political myth designed for overtly left-wing political ends.
Women today are full and equal citizens, with full and equal rights and opportunities; and the glass ceiling was shattered long, long ago. Good riddance.
Feature photo credit: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-California) courtesy of Doug Mills, New York Times, published in the San Antonio Express-News.