In light of this morning’s New York Times acknowledgment that a candidate in the Republican field for 2012 is a woman–“Mrs. Bachmann’s rivals,” we are told, “will have to find ways to disagree with Mrs. Bachmann without being accused of making subtle references to her gender”–we decided to look back at how many times the phrase “glass ceiling” appears in that paper in reference to a variety of would-be glass-ceiling-busters. (If it were broken, would we still be calling Ms. Bachmann “Mrs.?”
- Results for “Jeane Kirkpatrick” + “glass ceiling”: 1
- Results for “Barbara Jordan” + “glass ceiling”: 3
- Results for “Christine Lagarde” + “glass ceiling”:3 (the phrase wasn’t used in today’s briefing on her new post at the IMF!)
- Results for “Jill Abramson” + “glass ceiling”: 5 (all articles written by Ms. Abramson)
- Results for “Nancy Pelosi” + “glass ceiling”: 50
- Results for “Geraldine Ferraro” + “glass ceiling”: 74
- Results for “Michele Bachmann” + “glass ceiling”: 84
- Results for “Sarah Palin” + “glass ceiling”: 237
- Results for “Hillary Clinton” + “glass ceiling”: 458
Give it time, Ms./Mrs./Rep./Congresswoman Bachmann. You can stretch this run into infinite think pieces if you have enough funding!
ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_