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Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that women aspiring to higher office face not just a “glass ceiling” but a far tougher “marble ceiling.”
During an interview with USA Today’s Susan Page — published Saturday — Pelosi was asked whether she believed a woman would be elected president during her lifetime.
“I certainly hope so,” she responded. “I always thought that a woman would be President of the United States long before a woman would be Speaker of the House.”
Pelosi predicted that a woman would be elected to the Oval Office within the next generation. “I think it’s probably − maybe not in my lifetime, but within this next generation, there’ll be a woman,” she told Page.
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The California Democrat recalled that the men who ran things — or the “poor babies,” as she referred to them — were less than welcoming towards her when she made her entrance to Congress.
“It’s not a glass ceiling, it’s a marble ceiling,” Pelosi told Page. “I thought certainly the American people are far ahead of the Congress in terms of their acceptance or their enthusiasm for a woman to be President of the United States.”
After becoming the country’s first female speaker nearly 20 years ago, Pelosi has seen two women nominated for president, Hillary Clinton in 2016 and former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, both of whom were defeated by President Donald Trump.
According to USA Today, Clinton’s loss to Trump in 2016 was a deciding factor in Pelosi’s decision to delay her planned retirement. The outlet noted that these events “tempered Pelosi’s optimism, or at least her timetable, for seeing a woman in the Oval Office.”
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Last month, Pelosi expressed a similar sentiment about a future female president, pushing back on Michelle Obama’s recent claim that Americans are “not ready” to elect a woman to the White House.
When asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper whether she agreed with the former first lady’s comments, Pelosi questioned why a woman commander-in-chief would be out of the question.
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“Well, I hope — I mean, I respect her and I know that view is one that we all are saddened by, but we — I think we have to change. The fact is that I‘ve heard every excuse in the book, you know, like, ‘I‘m not sure a woman could be commander-in-chief.’ Well, why not?” she asked. “‘Well, I served in the military.’ Well, OK. And so? So do women serve in the military.”
The former House Speaker added that she “always thought we would have a woman president long before we had a woman Speaker of the House,” and that she “didn’t set out to be speaker.”
Following up on Pelosi’s statement, Cooper asked why she believed there would be a female president before a female speaker.
“Because I thought the American people were much more ready for a woman president,” Pelosi responded. “Just the thought of it is so exciting and the message it sends to the world. Faster than there would be a woman speaker as this place, I mean, it’s shall we say — it’s male-dominated for hundreds of years and so when I ran for leadership, they said, ‘Who said she could run?'”
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“Oh, poor babies. I’m not waiting for you to tell me I can run,” she added.
Pelosi argued that there is a “pecking order” of men in Washington who feel that they are entitled to certain positions within the government, and that it “still exists really on the Republican side.”
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