The Glass Ceiling, Still Intact: Women and Power in Washington

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The California senator Dianne Feinstein announced her retirement this week. First elected in 1992, she became one of the most powerful senators in the chamber and was often spoken of as a possible Presidential contender, although she never ran. Also this week, Nikki Haley announced her bid to challenge Donald Trump for the Republican Presidential nomination. In Democratic circles, there have been new reports of hand-wringing over Vice-President Kamala Harris’s political prospects. That got the staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos thinking about 1992—the Year of the Woman, as it was known—and about what has and hasn’t changed for women in politics in the three decades since.