--- title: Shonda Rhimes Delivers Amazing Speech on Not Breaking a Glass Ceiling description: "When it was my turn to run," Rhimes said Wednesday, "It didn’t even look like a ceiling anymore." canonical: https://time.com/3630419/watch-shonda-rhimes-amazing-speech-on-the-glass-ceiling/ author: Maya Rhodan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-12-11T21:07:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:56:27.286Z og:title: Shonda Rhimes Delivers Amazing Speech on Not Breaking a Glass Ceiling og:description: "When it was my turn to run," Rhimes said Wednesday, "It didn’t even look like a ceiling anymore." og:url: https://time.com/3630419/watch-shonda-rhimes-amazing-speech-on-the-glass-ceiling/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Shonda Rhimes Delivers Amazing Speech on Not Breaking a Glass Ceiling twitter:description: "When it was my turn to run," Rhimes said Wednesday, "It didn’t even look like a ceiling anymore." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Watch Shonda Rhimes' Amazing Speech on the 'Glass Ceiling' by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Dec 11, 2014 9:07 PM UTC by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Dec 11, 2014 9:07 PM UTC Shonda Rhimes is a game-changer; there’s really no disputing the fact that she has made an immense impact the portrayals of women in Hollywood. But yesterday, as the executive producer behind some of primetime television’s most popular shows accepted the [Sherry Lansing Leadership Award](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/shonda-rhimes-at-thrs-power-755878) at _The Hollywood Reporter_’s annual Women in Entertainment breakfast, she said denied breaking any “glass ceilings.” In her moving speech, Rhimes jokingly evoked Beyonce to explain why she couldn’t be getting an award simply because she is both a woman and African American. --- > “” --- Rhimes said that the honor, which has also been bestowed upon powerhouses including Oprah Winfrey, Barbara Walters, Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep, was also being given to her because of the “glass ceiling that exists in the face of being a woman and being black in this very male, very white town.” But in her mind, she hasn’t broken any glass ceilings at all. “When it was my turn to run,” Rhimes said Wednesday, “It didn’t even look like a ceiling anymore.” --- > “” --- She added, “Making it through the glass ceiling to the other side was simply a matter of running on a path created by every other woman’s footprints. I just hit at exactly the right time in exactly the right spot.” Rhimes’ speech appears in full on _Medium_ under the title “[On Ceilings Made of Glass](https://medium.com/thelist/on-ceilings-made-of-glass-e4b8561e46f8).” Watch her deliver the speech at Wednesday’s event below. Shonda Rhimes Delivers Amazing Speech on Not Breaking a Glass Ceiling ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3630419/watch-shonda-rhimes-amazing-speech-on-the-glass-ceiling/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3630419/watch-shonda-rhimes-amazing-speech-on-the-glass-ceiling/"},"headline":"Watch Shonda Rhimes' Amazing Speech on the 'Glass Ceiling'","datePublished":"2014-12-11T21:07:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:56:27.286Z","description":"\"When it was my turn to run,\" Rhimes said Wednesday, \"It didn’t even look like a ceiling anymore.\"","url":"https://time.com/3630419/watch-shonda-rhimes-amazing-speech-on-the-glass-ceiling/","keywords":["Living","feminism","women"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Maya Rhodan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3630419/watch-shonda-rhimes-amazing-speech-on-the-glass-ceiling/","name":"Watch Shonda Rhimes' Amazing Speech on the 'Glass Ceiling'"}}]}] ```