The female gender has fought for the right to vote, job and wage equality, and sexual identity for many years. It was back in August of 1981 that Congress passed Pub. L. 97-28. Pub. L. is a code for a public law that recognized the efforts of women nationally from every race, class and ethnic background as contributions to American society for a week in March. It wasn’t until 1987 that the petitions of the National Women’s History Project were able to get Congress to pass Pub. L. 100-9, a public law stating that the entire month of March would be acknowledged for women’s hands in the development of culture.
Antonia Coello Novello, a Hispanic woman, was U.S. Surgeon General from 1990-1993. She was stated as being the first woman ever to hold this position. (Info and photo from infoplease.com)
Edith Wharton became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her fiction novel Age of Innocence. (Info from infoplease.com, image from restlessbooks.com)
Sharon Pratt Dixon Kelly, now known as Sharon Pratt, was the first African American woman to ever serve as a mayor of a major U.S. city. She was the mayor of Washington, D.C. from 1991-1995. (Info from infopleas.com, image from the women’s foundation. org images)
Patsy Takemoto Mink, was the first female Asian American elected to Congress in 1964. (Info and image). It is said that she ran for president in 1972 but only receive 2% of the votes. (Additional info and image from mwhn.org)
Rita Moreno was the first Hispaninc American woman (and the second person ever to have won an Oscar, a Grammy, a Tony and an Emmy. (Info and photo from infoplease.com)
Althea Gibson was the first African American tennis player to ever play in and win both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. In total she won 56 tournaments. (Info from infoplease.com, image from kiss 104FM.com)
Connie Chung, was the first Asian American woman to become a nightly news anchor for a major network (CBS) in 1993. (Info from infoplease.com, image from maker.com)
Dr. Sally K. Ride was the first American woman sent to space. (Info and image from jsc.nasa.gov)
The work of mothers, educators, activists and countless others have all been a part of the effort to transform the image of women from mere objects to correspondences in life. As many women know this is an ongoing battle that can only see continual progress if the coming generation of women find that there is no limit to what they can do. So for all of those that have come before, ladies continue to seek change for how women are defined socially, politically, but most important personally.