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COLUMBUS, Ohio — State Rep. Gayle Manning, R-Lorain, made history during the first day of the Ohio legislature session.
She broke the glass ceiling when she became the first woman Speaker Pro Tempore at the House of Representatives.
Even though she was already involved in local politics while she worked as a teacher, Manning had a few obstacles to overcome before she got there.
“My late husband was very interested in politics and so he would, you know, help get people elected and I went along and helped him in any way he wanted me to,” Manning said. “I had some good friends that kind of talked me into it. They said all the reasons I gave for not running were out of fear, not knowing enough, not being able to do it and even driving down to Columbus kind of scared me.”
Manning was a teacher for 37 years and started at the city council, but it wasn’t until she retired from teaching that she ran for the position of State Senator.
Manning took those fears and turned them around to fight for issues dear in her heart.
“Anything dealing with families,” Manning said. “Being a woman, you understand sometimes you know the difficulties that children have, and families have especially single moms.”
Breaking the glass ceiling has a positive impact, political scientist Karen Beckwith with Case Western Reserve University specializes in women’s gender and politics.
She explained how breaking the glass ceiling can have a huge impact.
“Young girls seeing a woman in a position of political power actually begin to develop aspiration for themselves, in terms of leadership, not always political leadership but in terms of their own lives,” Beckwith said. “Representative Manning, is highly politically experienced she was in the Ohio Senate for two terms, and she is in her third term now in the Ohio House.”
But Ohio’s political glass ceiling has room for more.
Beckwith called onto Ohio’s governor to appoint Jane Timken to represent the Ohio in the U.S. Senate.
“Ohio has never had a woman represented in the U.S. Senate,” Beckwith said. “And here is Governor DeWine’s opportunity to secure his legacy as someone who supports the women of Ohio and to make sure that it is clear that the Republican party supports women in high positions of political leadership.”
Manning’s background as a teacher and teaching mostly second through fifth grade, she said prepared her in a way to get into politics and work on educational issues.
Yet, breaking the glass ceiling as a woman had its perks and challenges and when she started working as a politician she saw a change in her life.
“I went from always getting nice notes from my class and from parents and having to waiting in the line for the restroom at an elementary school, to never having to wait in line in the bathroom in Columbus and getting lots of hate mail,” Manning said.
But being a politician regardless of whether someone is a man or a woman, she said it already has its challenges and misconceptions.
“A lot of people think, oh wow, this is a cool job. She’s got a driver, she’s got, you know, an office in the district, I don’t have any of that,” Manning said. “I don’t get my way all the time now and no one does in politics and so you really have to learn to compromise and work with other people.”
Manning said she believes in doing the work and helping people. With this new role she said, she wants to balance representing her district along with the whole state of Ohio.
Her advice to younger generations, if they want to follow a political path, is to get involved in politics or volunteering and see how it all works firsthand.
For Manning, it’s all worth it she said, when she’s close to the people she represents and the issues that matter to them the most.
“I think a good thing to do is first to volunteer maybe somebody’s campaign so you can see the difficulty of getting elected,” Manning said. “My goal will be to always represent my district, the 52nd district in my county, Lorain County, very important to me and so I love to listen to people in the district and being able to go to all sorts of different events in the district.”
