Ellen Fitzpatrick Speaks About the “Highest Glass Ceiling” at Assembly
Alex Lim / The Exonian
By ESTHER CHAE, JIAQI LIU, LILY RAMPE, ISHA SASTRY, FORREST ZENG and SERENA YUE
On Friday, Sept. 27, the Academy hosted history professor Ellen Fitzpatrick for assembly, where she talked about the history of women running for president and encouraged students to keep chipping away at their goals.
Fitzpatrick currently teaches as a Professor of History at the University of New Hampshire and specializes in modern American history. She has written eight books, including The Highest Glass Ceiling: Women’s Quest for American Presidency, which explains the issues and successes of women who have tried to seek the presidency, and Letters to Jackie: Condolences from a Grieving Nation, which analyzes the effects of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on the American people.
Fitzpatrick has involved herself in the discussion of many topics and issues in the media. Her publications and writings are primary examples of her ongoing research into the issues of political problems within the United States.
Fitzpatrick started her speech with its purpose: “We hope, of course, that we will see changes occur. But the story that I have to tell you today isn’t one that has been finished by any means, but it’s a 150-year quest for women to really achieve a goal that is elusive.”
She mentioned the importance of Hilliary Clinton’s run for president in 2016 against former President Donald Trump. “Hillary Clinton appeared on that evening to be poised to be elected the first woman president of the United States,” she said. “No woman prior to Hillary Clinton had ever come as close, and the polls indicated that she was going to shatter this highest glass ceiling.”
Unlike many other countries which have been led by women, Fitzpatrick explained the differences seen in the United States. “We have many, many examples of women successfully leading their nations,” she said. “But what I’d suggest to you is that the forms of government that brought these women to power were really different from what we have in the United States. That is, they came to power often through hereditary absolute or constitutional monarchies or through parliamentary systems where you could rise in a party, the party is elected, and then the woman becomes the prime minister through such a system.”
“That’s very different from the American system,” Fitzpatrick continued, “where the people directly elect an individual, the president, we don’t elect the president’s political party, but we’re voting for the standard bearer that they pick. We’re not voting for the party itself. The party isn’t the name we choose on the ballot, it’s the individual.”
Another difference she mentioned was the wide range of roles the U.S. President holds, including being the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Military: “And most importantly and most problematic for women, he or she is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. It was on that point that many felt women could not exercise the duties of the President because either they would be too emotional or they would not be bloodthirsty enough. So could a woman really lead armies, you know, direct armies into war, and after 1945, the big question was, would a woman press the button? That is, would a woman be able to launch nuclear weapons if that was necessary? The associations of women historically with the peace movement enhanced those concerns on the part of many Americans.”
Fitzpatrick continued her assembly by mentioning three influential women throughout history who ran for president: Victoria Woodhull, Margaret Chase Smith, and Shirley Chisholm.
She first described Woodhull, the first woman to run for President of the United States in 1871, at a time when women could not yet vote. Fitzpatrick characterized Woodhull as a “clairvoyant. She was a bit of a spiritualist, a fortune teller. She had been drawn increasingly to women’s suffrage, and decided to set up her own political party, her own newspaper, to promote her candidacy.” Fitzpatrick proceeded to describe Woodhull’s place in the 1872 election: “She posed no threat to the primary candidates—but she definitely got a lot of attention.”
Next, Fitzpatrick related the story of Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith. She described the sexist tropes that surrounded Smith’s run, noting that “She was a very distinguished senator. And yet she had many sexist accusations against her. Her campaign was hampered by many obvious problems—such as public doubts, fundraising, and a lack of support from power brokers.”
Finally, Fitzpatrick spoke about Representative Shirley Chisholm. “Chisholm realized recent changes would create a whole new set of possible voters for the Democratic Party,” she said, “particularly African-American women and newly enfranchised young people, as well as working people that she could tap into. This was a new coalition emerging in the Democratic Party that she could take advantage of.”
Fitzpatrick continued, “She stepped forward in 1972 and decided to run. She didn’t do very well, but she got more delegates than any woman candidate until Hillary Clinton in 2016.”
As the assembly drew to a close, Fitzpatrick highlighted the increasing prevalence of women candidates in major nomination races, namely former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and diplomat Nikki Haley. She emphasized the remaining sexism that they faced, but expressed confidence in the “incredible persistence of the women and men who supported them.”
She concluded the assembly by imploring students to make changes. “I hope you’ll show the same kind of resilience in whatever it is you choose to do.”
After the assembly, Fitzpatrick told The Exonian that she intended to historicize the current election and provide an insightful history lesson for students. “It’s not my job to put my thumb on the scale about the current election,” she said. “What I wanted to contribute was a historical analysis of the current election, and to really fill in the background about a lot of other women who came before, and to understand what those obstacles have been in the past.”
On her passion for history, Fitzpatrick said, “I was always interested in history. When I was growing up, my grandmother lived with us, and that greatly interested me in the past. I really enjoyed my history classes, and I had some wonderful teachers and professors who treated history as a story about contested truths. History, I found, is a debate about what to make of those facts—that’s what got me interested in the study of history.”
Reactions to the assembly were relatively mixed. Most students agreed that the speaker was informational and delivered a good message, though some doubted her ability to send an unbiased message. “I agreed with what she said about women being represented equally. It was a nice history lesson that provided a deep look into the lives of three very interesting candidates throughout history,” upper Joseph Vicente said. “At the beginning, however, the speaker stated that she wasn’t trying to be political at all, and I didn’t see that as incredibly genuine.”
Senior C.J. Smith saw the assembly less politically. “I thought the assembly was informative, and I like how she kept it apolitical and specifically talked about the history,” he said. “I guess I agreed with what she said because it was mostly historical context and not an opinion.”
Prep Alice Miller was similarly fascinated with the educational content of the speech. “I really liked how she went through a lot of prominent female candidates from many years ago,” she said. “I thought it was interesting how she illustrated the disparity between the progress we’ve made as a society, and the cultural progress we’ve made.”
An anonymous student viewed the assembly in context with the current election: “There wasn’t one particular part of the assembly that stood out to me, but what did was looking at this history in the context of Kamala Harris being the Democratic nominee for President. If she is elected she will be the first female and the first South Asian President of the United States and will have made history in part because of the other women who ran before her.”
On Fitzpatrick’s call to action, prep Avni Murarka remarked, “This assembly really showed me the importance of putting time and effort into things, no matter how it ends up. If you want something, you really want it, you feel very passionate about it, your effort might not help yourself and you might not see the fruits of your effort, but the generations in the future will, and they’ll be incredibly thankful for what you did.”
Another anonymous student added, “I left the assembly with the feeling that I stand on the backs of so many inspiring, courageous, and powerful women. As someone who wants to go into politics, I knew so little about these candidates and their place in history and I feel it is my responsibility to honor their legacies in my future.”
Later in the day, Fitzpatrick spoke to students and teachers in an Elting Room lunch seminar. In the seminar, she discussed with students recent elections and the increasing normalcy for women to be major political candidates.
One anonymous student who attended the lunch shared why they attended the lunch, saying, “I attended the lunch because I felt that her speech was very relevant today and I wanted to explore that. She talked a lot about common threads that led these candidates to defeat and I wanted to discuss those in the context of this Presidential election.”
“Although Vice President Harris doesn’t have to worry about many of the factors other female candidates did,” the student continued, “the current political climate sets up a unique set of challenges for her.”
During her short but impactful visit to the Academy, Fitzpatrick implored students to have the courage to change attitudes with action. She noted that the theories undergirding action are legitimate—but that action is needed, nevertheless, to propel those theories.
