"Young women have no idea how hard women of my generation had to work to break into so many fields. After earning my Ph.D. at Harvard, the 14 other students in my class, all of whom were men went into Government Jobs at a GS14. At my State Department Job in the Government Accountability office I was told, "There are no women at GS14." and was demoted to a GS13. A year later they said, "You have now been promoted to a GS14." And I said, "No. I was always a GS14 now you finally re-instated me." - Rosemary Staley is a former State Department Officer, Peace Corps Country Director in Cameroon, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and the National Coordinator of the Hillary Support Network.
Judy Gabbie
"My mother, because she was lighter skinned, managed to buy a house in an all-white neighborhood in Indiana - she wanted me and my sisters to integrate into the white schools. On the night of our house warming party our neighbors, who turned out to be Klan members and not the brightest people, burned a cross into their own yard and nearly lit both of our houses on fire. My teachers said that "Negro" students weren't smart. My mother, like Michelle Obama, taught us, "When they go low, we go high". Then I won the 6th grade Math contest. Oh they hated that and hated that I went to Harvard. If we weren't an all female household I think they would have killed us." - Judy Gabbie just returned from serving in the Peace Corps in Mexico.
Emily Altman
"My mother, Floria Lasky, was a very successful entertainment lawyer who never retired and worked until she passed away at 84. She practiced law starting in in 1945. She was liberated , powerful and a role model for many female lawyers and for women in general. So it really wasn't until I was in my 30's that I realized that professionally gender could be an issue. I had graduated from Harvard as the last Radcliffe graduating class, I had a great job but I realized there was this glass ceiling for women." Emily is a mediator/arbitrator at Emily Altman LLC as well as the President of the Frederick Loewe Foundation.