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12 x October 19 - November 1, 2017 x www.SouthwestOrlandoBulletin.com
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employed as secretaries, nurses or
teachers. Change came about slowly,
but steady progress was made as
more and more women joined the
workforce, giving rise to new challenges,
as well.
One of the more glaring grievances
became an inequality of pay.
Female workers were paid less than
men doing the same type of work.
In an effort to combat this disparity,
Congress passed the Equal Pay
Act of 1963. It promised equitable
wages regardless of the sex of the
worker. Although the EPA was an unequivocal
victory in women’s rights,
equal pay is a battle still being
waged in many places today.
The ’80s were a time of more
leaps in females taking leadership
career roles and asserting themselves
as not only capable of keeping
up with their male coworkers,
but oftentimes surpassing them and
rising to the tops of their fields. From
what was previously a minor number
of women in the workforce and
landing governmental roles, became
a surge of women who chose to pursue
careers.
A couple of notable pioneers
were Sandra Day O’Connor,
who became the first woman to
serve on the Supreme Court in 1981,
and Sally K. Ride, Ph.D., the first
American woman sent into space
in 1983.
Known as The Year of the
Woman, 1992 saw a record number
of women elected to Congress,
four winning Senate elections and
two dozen elected to first terms in
the House. One of these women,
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, regarded
the phrase with contempt.
“Calling 1992 the Year of the
Woman makes it sound like the Year
of the Caribou or the Year of the
Asparagus,” she said. “We’re not a
fad, a fancy or year.”
Modern Feminism
Mikulski was certainly correct in
her statement; “women in power”