It always bothers me when I look through old issues of the Cook County News-Herald and find articles or photos about women’s activities. Even as recently as the 1970s, hard-working women—workers at the school or hospital or grocery store, members of chamber of commerce or the hospital auxiliary or some other important community organization— are not identified by name. In story after story, photo caption after photo caption, smiling ladies are identified as Mrs. Joe Somebody.
Some of these women I recognize and I can say, “Oh that’s Nancy or Barbara.” Others remain unknown.
The women’s movement changed that and I am so very glad. It may seem like a trivial thing, but to me it means a lot. I love my husband dearly and I chose to take his last name when we got married. But I don’t think a woman should have to give up her entire identity when she says, “I do.”
Thanks to the women’s movement, we don’t have to. In fact, we don’t even have to give up our last name. If we wish, we can keep both our old name and new name.
Thanks to the women’s movement, history now records what women do as themselves, not as somebody’s wife.
We owe that change to many brave women who fought for equal rights and I think it’s nice that the month of March is Women’s History Month.
Women’s History Month was introduced by a school district in California in 1978. I’m guessing a Mrs. Joe Somebody, seeking her own identity, started it.
I greatly enjoy the events that take place during Women’s History Month and the stories told about the role women have played in our nation and in their own destiny.
Women like the equal rights pioneers found right here in Minnesota, the Willmar 8.
I had moved away from Minnesota when this group of women bank employees went on strike for equal pay in April 1977. I don’t remember hearing about their struggle.
But I am moved by it now, by the idea of the eight women employees picketing the Citizens’ National Bank in Willmar wearing snowmobile suits in the minus 70 degree wind chill.
For years the women had accepted the fact that the bank paid men more than women. They trained new male employees who then received promotions they were not eligible for. But when the bank hired a young, inexperienced, man to a position and paid him $700 a month—much more than the $400 per month most of the women earned after years of service—the strike began.
They filed a gender-discrimination complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board.
In June 1978, the commission ruled that there was reasonable cause to believe that there had been gender discrimination at the bank. The bank’s board of directors agreed to negotiate but the discussions went nowhere.
In March 1979, the strike ended altogether when the National Labor Relations Board ruled that the women had gone on strike for economic reasons, not labor practices. That meant the women would get no back pay and no guarantee that they would get their jobs back.
After two grueling years, with the strike causing stress within marriages and between friends, it seemed to be a loss and the women moved on to other jobs. But it was not really defeat. The struggle that began in the bitter winter planted a seed of hope for other women. Today, the Willmar 8 are saluted for the role they played in bringing the idea of equal work for equal pay to light. They deserve to be remembered during Women’s History Month in March and through the year. These pioneering women, known by their full names—not Mrs. Joe Somebody—made a huge difference for all of us.
Even a purely moral act that has
no hope of any immediate and
visible political effect can gradually
and indirectly, over time, gain in
political significance.
Vaclav Havel
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