Women Kick Butt!

Women are making strides, actually not strides, leaps and bounds. It would seem that since women won the right to vote in 1920 there wouldn’t be anything left for us to conquer. I mean, that was almost 90 years ago. By now, women should have done everything and have a presence everywhere.

Women have been the first at a lot of things throughout history. Here are just a few of the big moments:

• 1925 Nellie Tayloe Ross became the first woman governor
• 1932 Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic
• 1934 Lettie Pate Whitehead became the first woman to serve as director of a major corporation
• 1960 Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier
• in 1965 Patsy Takemoto Mink was the first Asian-American to be elected to Congress
• 1972 Sally Jean Priesand was the first woman rabbi in the U.S.
• 1981 Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court
• 1985 Wilma Mankiller was the first woman to became the chief of the Cherokee Nation
• 1990 Dr. Antonia Novello becomes the first Hispanic woman and woman to be U.S. Surgeon General
• 1992 Carol Moseley-Braun is the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Senate….and the list goes on.

However, after almost 90 years since women’s suffrage, is there really that much women haven’t done? Is the glass ceiling still that low? The answer to these questions is, yes. And because the answer is yes, women are still making history and being the first, especially in the past two years.

It was announced today that Ann E. Dunwoody would be the first woman four-star general in the U.S. military. Today, at a ceremony at the Pentagon she will be awarded her fourth star. This is huge! This a huge honor, especially since women weren’t permitted to serve in the military until decades into the twentieth century.

Remember the big story just two years ago that Katie Couric would be the first solo female anchor of a national evening news show, CBS Evening News? I think she is doing great!

Another big event (2007) was when Nancy Pelosi became the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives. This is one of the top positions in our political system and we have a woman in control!In 2007, Drew Gilpin Faust became the first woman president of Harvard University in the school’s 371-year history. Wow.

Hillary Clinton has been a lot of firsts, the First Lady, the first First Lady to be elected to the U.S. Senate, and this year the first woman to win a presidential primary. She was so close to running our country it was unbelievable!

Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, was the first woman to run for Vice President on the Republican ticket.

It is hard to fathom that women haven’t done everything, I mean we are all suppose to be equal! I wonder how long it will be until there is nothing left to be the first at?