Women after the ’50s in the 20th century

In the ’50s, ’60s and even the ’70s, women were excluded from many business organizations, and they were stereotypically anonymous wives and mothers not even allowed to be identified with their own name. Women’s organizations were downgraded as not important professionally as their husbands. I refused to join “wives’” clubs. I took on the male-dominated establishment. I had experienced very unfair treatment as a working woman. I was a single mother trying to provide support for my children and myself since I was 16 years old.

I remarried in 1964 and my husband Jim always urged me on to fulfill my potential. I was the only woman in the room taking the California Licensed Investigator’s exam in 1972 and passed it and I was only the second woman licensed investigator at the time. I was surprised that I was the first one finished with the licensing exam in a room full of men.

In those days, the women were excluded from organizations, such as private investigators and insurance adjusters. I wriggled an invitation from one of my male colleagues and attended with the then all-male attendees. The organization today recognizes women as equal participants.

I also crashed the Toastmasters Club, as it was all male. The men in the club at first were skeptical. One of the things a member did was take a picture of a group and singled me out with one man to make his wife jealous. It was supposed to be a joke. All in all, they accepted me and later, the second woman, who came after, was elected president of their group.

I was also enrolled in law school when it was still novel for women.

Women who challenged the status quo were not popular with men or with other women in those earlier days. After graduating from CSUB, I went to law school and passed the State Bar in 1987 when I was 45. I am now 80 and have practiced law since then.

In the past, the Petroleum Club was an all-male organization at the Bell Tower when women were excluded. I was invited to have lunch some of those years ago and when I walked into the room, a nice-looking businessman in his 30s walked up to me and said, “What are you doing here?”

I smiled and replied, “having lunch,” and sat down and ordered my lunch to a nice young waitress who cheered me on. Of course, all the servers were women at the time.

These are a few such incidents of discrimination that I experienced and I look back at with humor.

I guess what drove me to change things was the sense of injustice. I was disillusioned because society made me an outsider when I was divorced. Before I was first married, I thought women should be the homemaker, serve their husbands and nurture their children but not be trampled.

Even my mother, who was also a wage earner in our house, did not understand why I wanted an education. If I did, she wanted me in a “women’s job.” She said “be a nurse or a teacher.”

Many women were left to fend for themselves because of economic inequality.

It was not unusual for a man to leave his wife for a younger woman as he became successful in his career, and she was left behind.

My personal journey can be summed up to this: I just wanted to have a chance to make a difference in the world. I wish that everyone could have an equal chance to succeed without wrongful discrimination. I wish this for all people.