Historic first: Male senators listen to female colleague in polite silence

WASHINGTON D.C. -- Congressional historian Gideon Blight says the U.S. Senate made American history on Wednesday when Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren gave an impassioned tribute to Coretta Scott King and Warren's male colleagues listened in polite silence until she was finished talking.

The scene was "unprecedented," Blight told CQ. "It was almost as if the male senators viewed Warren as their professional equal with a right to speak without being interrupted."

While the prestigious legislative body has a long history of subjecting women parliamentarians to "humiliation, degradation, and total and silencing," Blight said things might at last be changing under President Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"Since Clinton beat Trump by three million votes last November, I think a lot of male Senators have gotten the message that the electorate just won't reward misogynist bullies anymore," he said.