On this day in women’s history…
| March 4th, 2004March 4
1917: (A First) Jeannette Rankin of Montana took her seat as the first woman elected to the House of Representatives. Montana women had the vote several years before the 1920 Federal amendment. She would serve only one term because as a pacifist she voted against the U.S. entry into World War I. Ironically she was sent back to Congress just in time to cast the dissenting vote for the U.S. entry into World War II after the Japanese attack on U.S. installations at Pearl Harbor.
1933: (A First) Frances Perkins assumes office of Secretary of Labor, the first woman to join a president’s cabinet.
1969: In a U.S. Supreme Court face-off, a woman attorney lifts a typewriter weighing more than 30 pounds that phone company secretaries were required to move by themselves.
That one single dramatic moment torpedoed the long held, inviolate strength prejudices against women who were thus barred from higher paying men-only jobs. Women were considered “too delicate and weak” to handle heavy weight or equipment.
The attorney then pointed out the phone company weight restriction for men before they were entitled to get help was only 25 pounds - five pounds less than a secretary who was paid considerably less was required to handle ALONE! The landmark case was Weeks v Southern Bell.
1982: (A First) Berthe Wilson is the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada.
1983: (A First) Montana became the first state to ban sex discriminatory rates in all insurance. Under the prevailing discriminatory rate structure women were paying up to 30% more for the *same* insurance coverage as men whether it was auto, health, disability, or old age income insurance even though actuary tables indicated women were less accident prone and lived longer.
