Middle School
Worksheets
Nancy Pelosi Elected Speaker of the House
For years, women in business and politics have advanced only to a certain level and then been stopped by the "glass ceiling," an expression that means an invisible upper limit to advancement by women.
So when Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi changed the expression in a speech to "marble ceiling," was she saying that the upper limit for women in Congress was even tougher to break through?
Not at all! Nancy Pelosi's speech marked the occasion of her election as Speaker of the House, leader of the House of Representatives, in January 2007. In her speech, she announced, "Today we have broken the marble ceiling."
It was an historic day for American women, or as Nancy Pelosi said, "for our daughters and granddaughters." Nancy Pelosi had just become the highest ranking woman ever in the U.S. government. She was now second in the line of succession to the President of the United States, right after the vice president.
