Celebrating Women Workers On Labor Day
Labor Day has been said to have been first created in the late 1800s as a celebration of workers. It was intended to be a tribute to how working people everywhere have contributed to our country. Historians say that the first real push of women in the workplace came during World War I, when the government realized a need to coordinate the resources of working women. It later spun into an organization that has fought for equal pay, rights and the end of sexual discrimination of women in the workplace for more than thirty years. Up until the 1980s (barely twenty years ago!) women still faced segregation that limited them to low paying, low opportunity jobs and dozens of other issues. Most adult women today more than likely had mothers or relatives affected by this. I know that I did.
Equal pay, however, was hardly the sole issue and the 90s sparked a massive effort to tackle problems like sexual harassment, glass ceilings and healthcare. Many women workers, including at the corporate level, were discriminated for being married, having families, were fired for becoming pregnant and a host of other things. At the same time, more women were working in corporate America than ever. It created a massive cultural footprint including movies like Mr. Mom, Working Girl, and 9 to 5, along with dozens of songs, books and TV shows about working and corporate women. Progress remained slow nonetheless — just seven years ago, women were still rallying Congress to support the 1963 Paycheck Fairness Act!
Not long ago, I was on a call with my mom and she said, “I really envy you. You literally have every door open to you, every opportunity if you want it. When I was your age, even if a woman was great at something, or enjoyed something, there was little opportunity to pursue it.” On this Labor Day, I would like to give a shout out to the millions of working women who have paved the way before us today and thank them. Rights for women workers still have a ways to go, but it’s because of women like my mom, your mom, our grandmothers, and millions of other ambitious, driven women like ourselves that we have opportunities they only dreamt of. — Patricia
