css selectors - What is the alternative to CSS-selecting an ancestor

itemprop="text">

CSS(3) has descendent
selectors, e.g. td em {color: red};, but href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1251768/css-parent-ancestor-selector">no
ancestor selector, apparently.

So,
what should I do instead of something like td {border: 1pt solid red}
em; ? i.e., how can I set a style on ancestors of some (X)HTML
element?

Note:

• Javascript is not
  relevant for the workaround, something XPath'y might
  be.

itemprop="text">

class="normal">Answer

You can wait for CSS4 selectors to
be implemented, then do

td! em
            {
 border: 1pt solid
            red;
}

See
rel="nofollow">http://dev.w3.org/csswg/selectors4/.

Or...

var
            xpathresult = document.evaluate("//td[.//em]", 
 document, null,
            XPathResult.ANY_TYPE, null); 
while (e=xpathresult.iterateNext()){

            e.classList.add("border");
}

See
rel="nofollow">https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DOM/document.evaluate.
Normal browser support caveats apply.