Charlotte Taft (1950- ) VFA
Charlotte Taft, now in New Mexico, in her own words: “This took longer to write than I ever could have imagined and led me on a journey of memory for which I am very grateful. Everything I have done was made possible by people who came before me or collaborated with me or challenged me, loved me or hated me. I have not even attempted to include the names of all the people who shaped my life.
My long term relationship with the women’s movement began when I was in college. I had thought of myself as a ‘man’s woman’ and believed that men were smarter and more interesting than women. In my second year at Brown University I was against the war in Vietnam, as many students were, and I participated in several demonstrations and marches organized on campus. I was not much of an activist and I was very afraid of being tear gassed by the National Guard. In the Spring of 1969 my campus, like many other campuses, went on strike in response to Nixon’s bombing of Cambodia. Our professors told us that we would be able to still get a grade for our unfinished courses if we wrote a paper over the summer. I was spending the summer with my boyfriend’s family home in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois and signed up for some courses at the U of I so that it would be easier for me to concentrate on actually writing something. One of the courses I chose was titled something like, “The Politics of Women’s Liberation”. That class transformed my world.
I don’t recall exactly what was on the syllabus--it was so early in the movement that many of the books that opened my eyes and heart weren’t yet published. But we probably read The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, which was published in 1963, and a host of articles and essays that were being written and shared by women. Throughout the early movement these mimeographed essays were shared in publications and from the hand of one woman to another in an underground network that is especially extraordinary when you realize it was long before the Internet made everything accessible! I can’t exaggerate the impact the course made on my mind and heart. It was as if I had been parched desert land drinking up the moisture of a sudden shower.
I’m not going to get all the chronology right--many things had been happenng in the women’s movement long before I was paying attention. NARAL (Initially the National Association to Repeal Abortion Laws) was founded in 1968, and I became peripherally involved in the Rhode Island effort to find a plaintiff to challenge the abortion laws all over the country in 1969 or 1970. The controversy in those days was between the activists who thought it best to reform abortion laws state by state, and those who favored a total repeal of all laws prohibiting abortion. I was on the side of repeal. I have wondered in the years since if a reform process for abortion would have allowed us to come to a national consensus. As it is, the national ‘conversation’ about abortion has not matured much in the past 36 years. Yet it is hard to imagine a nation in which such a fundamental right would be available or not depending on where a woman lives.
There was a lot happening —Hawaii and New York and other states liberalized their laws so that women actually had access to legal abortion. Major organizations such as the American Bar Association and others came out in favor of legal abortion. In 1970, though most of us didn’t know it, the ovular case that became Roe v. Wade started in a pizza parlor and began to wend its way to the Supreme Court.
Carol Downer, a feminist from California, came to the Brown campus in the early 1970s and talked about taking back our own bodies. At the end of the talk she got up on the desk, inserted a speculum and showed us her cervix. That led to the formation of self-help groups with women all over the country learning what our bodies were all about. In those days virtually all gynecologists were male. I remember someone saying that as we used plastic specula to look at our own cervices, we were viewing something that had previously only been seen by men!
My little group of friends drove to Washington DC for one of the first national marches for abortion rights. None of us had really been activists, so our daring and courage and determination was exhilarating. Somewhere in a box I still have my first edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves which revolutionized women’s relationships with their own bodies. It cost 75¢˝.
The idea that women could share information and stories about our lives was part of the revolution. I was part of women’s Consciousness Raising groups for years, reading everything I could get my hands on that continued to explore the nature of women and the roles we had been playing for so long. The women’s movement in those days took on everything from equal pay for equal work to relationships, child rearing, sexuality, health, domestic violence, the nature of gender roles, nature v. nurture, the history of women’s activism which was unknown to most of us, house work, and everything else we could imagine. In those days we had nothing to lose--and we were honest and bold and creative and it was an extraordinary time to be a young woman.
My friends and I noticed, though, that many of us were leading double lives. In the privacy of our groups we were strong feminists, but in our relationships we were still following the traditional female roles we had learned from our families.
I completed an Independent Major in Feminist Studies at Brown in the spring of 1972. My boyfriend and I were both at loose ends as to what to do next. He wanted to go to Harvard Law, and I had heard that there was a Master’s program in Feminist Studies in Cambridge, Mass, so we found an apartment in Brighton and I went to the Cambridge-Goddard Graduate School for Social Change. That was another pivotal part of my education in the women’s movement. I spent two years reading, talking, arguing, and exploring feminist issues from the perspective of popular culture and earned a Master’s Degree in Feminist Studies. I have always been interested in language, and I find the terminology of my two degrees – Bachelor’s and Master’s to be very ironic.
I still recall where I was in my little apartment the moment I heard about the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. Even though I had been active in a self-help group where we did pelvic exams and even menstrual extractions, I didn’t feel very connected to the abortion movement at that moment. One of my good friends had an abortion soon after Roe--and I was only mildly interested in knowing about her experience. It wasn’t until I moved to Dallas and started working in a clinic in 1975 that my true work began.
But as I see it now, my own connection with abortion began very early. I remember the publicity around the case of Sheri Finkbine, a Romper Room TV Teacher who sought a legal abortion in Phoenix Arizona in 1962 because she had taken the teratogenic drug Thalidomide during her pregnancy. I was 12 and my mother and I both agreed that it was her decision what to do and terrible that her private anguish had become part of the public conversation. When I was 15 I had inherited some money from my grandfather, and my mother came to me with an unusual request. Her dear friend, the Catholic mother of seven, had an 18-year old daughter who was pregnant and suicidal. Her boyfriend had abandoned her. My mother had assisted the family in going through the process of seeking what was then called a ‘therapeutic abortion’ from the hospital committee that was the arbiter of choice in those days. The committee had agreed that the young woman could have an abortion, but there was no insurance. My mother came to me to ask if I would pay for the abortion. Of course I said yes. I don’t know anything more about that woman and how her life proceeded from that point. But it was just the first of thousands of women whose pregnancies and abortions would become part of my life.
In 1974 my boyfriend was attending Harvard Law School, and many other of my friends went to law school as well. It seemed almost the default of what we were supposed to do with our lives. I had only applied to one school, and I didn’t get in! So I decided to take a long trip that would end with my participation in the first all women’s Outward Bound trip in Texas in Big Bend Park. My father was the national President of the Outward Bound School, but I had never been much of an outdoors person, so it was a very big deal for me to go on the trip.
The five or so days in Big Bend was life changing in many ways. To my complete surprise I found myself falling in love with one of the women on the trip. I went back to Cambridge and my boyfriend and I formalized the breaking up that had been happening for a long time. But I didn’t tell anyone about my new love because she was extremely closeted in Dallas. It was another irony,because by then the coolest women in Cambridge were the lesbians! In the summer of 1975, having lied to my family and friends, I moved to Dallas with no idea of what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
In Dallas I immediately connected with the NOW chapter (an organization I dismissed in Cambridge as being hopelessly bourgeois). It would be an understatement to say that the women’s liberation movement was just barely beginning to touch Dallas. In the fall of 1975 the court handed down a desegregation ruling for Dallas. Though it wasn’t exactly a women’s movement issue, the NOW Chapter wanted to support a calm and fair response to the ruling.
There was a meeting at City Hall and I was the only one free in the afternoon, so I attended the meeting and, for the first time, spoke at a microphone in public. That night clips from the meeting were on the evening news and there I was! In Massachusetts it had seemed daunting to attempt to affect public policy. But here I was, a newcomer in Dallas, and on the evening news! I worked tirelessly with the NOW chapter for many years. We did demonstrations and wrote letters and brought the case of justice for women to the public in whatever ways we could think of.
One year several NOW members entered cooking contests at the Texas State Fair because we wanted to win prize money to donate to the Equal Rights Amendment. To my total surprise I won Best in Show for Charlotte’s Liberated ERA Casserole – which was Martha’s Company Casserole in a former incarnation. My recipe was printed in the State Fair of Texas cookbook for that year. But obviously those efforts and all the others were not enough to bring us the ERA. That was a long and sad project.
We also took up causes, one of the first of which was another irony for me. In 1974 we decided to assist in the nation’s first publicly known lesbian mother custody case of a woman named Mary Jo Risher. Mary Jo was a nurse whose ex-husband was seeking custody of their adopted son. Her partner, Ann, was a bookkeeper who also had a daughter. The case was heartbreaking because the main impetus for the suit was that Mary Jo was gay, and therefore not a fit mother. The irony, of course, was that I was a closeted lesbian speaking on behalf of out lesbians. Those years of lying, which went on for another decade of my life, were very difficult for me. I hated feeling out of integrity, yet it also appeared to me that whatever power or authority I had in the world would be gone if my sexuality were known. At Christmastime Mary Jo lost custody of her son Richard. By that time I had done many interviews with them and even appeared as a character in a book written about the case called By Her Own Admission.
As I think about those early feminist years in Dallas I feel so fortunate to have been one of the few women who got to have the heady, fabulous days of the women’s movement twice. By the time I had left Cambridge the movement there was already fractionalized - as in Robin Morgan’s quote, “Sisterhood is Powerful — It’ll kill you.” But Dallas was a new frontier and there were few people in town who were saying the things I was saying--so I became a spokesperson. Through the support of friends like Ginny Whitehill I served on the then enormous NARAL Board--by then the name had been changed to the National Abortion Rights Action League. I welcomed Ellie Smeal, then the president of NOW, to stay in my guest room when she was in town for a speech. I met Marilyn French, author of The Women’s Room. I was active in the Women’s Political Caucus.
What changed my life most significantly was an appearance on a talk show with a woman I knew who worked in an abortion clinic. I was speaking about abortion from a political angle – she from the experience of a counselor. After the show as we had a drink together she said, “You should apply for a job at the clinic.” Since I had no idea what I was going to do with my life I made an appointment for an interview. At that time the clinic wasn’t very skillful about preparing outsiders to observe, so they stuck me in a room to watch an abortion, and I fainted dead away. I was mortified, and worried that my fainting had endangered the woman during her procedure, but the counselor said, “She was fine. She was actually nervous before you came in, but you took her mind off the abortion.” And they hired me. From then on I was involved as what I have come to see as my dharma—my destiny—or what I was born to do.
Early in my time as an abortion counselor a new organization was formed that became the National Abortion Federation – a group for abortion providers. I was present at the founding meeting of the group, but I was a lowly counselor and no one even knew I was there. As the years progressed I served twice on the national board of that organization. I was completely engrossed in my work at the clinic, and I wanted to make it the very best it could be. At first I’m sure the Director was delighted to have such a hard worker. But later I think I just became a pain in the neck and she essentially fired me. I was totally bereft — I thought of myself as a conductor who had no orchestra — how can you be an abortion counselor if you don’t work in a clinic? There was no other clinic in town that even began to match my standards for how I thought things should be. people to interview. For most of these years I was paired off with either Bill Price, head of Dallas Right to Life, who later outed me on a TV show — or else with someone like Richard Land head of the Texas Baptist Convention.
My colleague Mary Gilmore kept me on the straight and narrow working tirelessly for women for year after year. During these early clinic years my sexuality was in flux. I had broken up with my first woman love and bought a house shortly before my new clinic opened in April of 1978. I was dating men sporadically and thinking how convenient it would be if I could fall in love with a man. But it just didn’t happen. In 1984, still closeted, I attended that Texas Democratic Convention. I was on the periphery of the Gay and Lesbian Democratic activists, and at the meeting a ‘gay’ seat on the National Democratic Platform Committee became one of the bargaining points in a political compromise. The leaders asked who could go to Washington D.C. to be on the committee, and no one was available. I finally said that I would love to go, but that I couldn’t be out. In those days that actually was acceptable, and the plan was hatched. I arranged to stay with some friends of a friend in D.C. and merrily went off to the meeting at a giant convention center.
When I arrived I was appalled to see that the gay and lesbian delegates (including me) had little liberty bells beside their names to designate them. AACH! What about my secrecy?? The Dallas Morning News was covering the meeting and I was totally freaked out. After scrambling around some and talking about my fears I was allowed to be more or less in the background. I did manage to insert a sentence into the National Democratic Platform, but it was about abortion, not gay rights. By the end of the meeting I was a little less terrified, and then came the opportunity I simply could not pass up. The gay and lesbian delegates had a photo opp for a publication called the Gay Blade with Geraldine Ferraro. I had to be in it. And it never occurred to me that anyone would ever see it. After all, the head of Dallas Right to Life hardly had a subscription to a Washington DC gay publication!
The very next year I taped a new talk show that was piloting with statewide syndication hosted by Ed Busch. In part of the show Bill Price, then the head of Dallas Right to Life confronted me with the photograph and announced that he had to reveal that I was a lesbian. My life flipped over. On the show I didn’t acknowledge or deny his ‘revelation’. Afterwards when the producer told me that they were willing to forego airing the show I told them, no--that if he had this information I was going to have to deal with it--and that it couldn’t come out looking any better for me than it did on his show when the audience booed him. The show was set to air at Christmas time, so I got busy telling the people in my life that I was a lesbian. I’m sure that lots of people had already figured it out--it didn’t take a rocket scientist. But I was afraid I would lose my job, and afraid of the judgment of the mainstream women who had supported reproductive rights--afraid they would feel betrayed--or that I had undermined the movement by being a spokesperson who was secretly a pervert.
It was a very, very difficult time. My coworkers and clinic owners were amazingly supportive. And the women in the community stood by me and reassured me that they were proud to have me speaking out for them. I got hundreds of letters of support, and only two that were negative. One said that I should ‘roast in hell’ and the other said that I was damned if I was a lesbian, and that if I was not one, sorry to have bothered me!
Because I had been accused but not acknowledged what was true I knew that I had some work to do. Sometime in January one of the most egregious Dallas Morning News columnists wrote a horrible editorial about gays. I was used to writing letters to the editor, and hundreds of mine had been printed in both Dallas papers over the years. But in this one I wrote something like, “This column by William Murchison makes it easy to understand why we gays and lesbians have not been honest about our lives.” The head of the letters to the editor page called me and asked if I had written the letter, and I told her I had and she published it. And so began my career as a gay activist. In my years in Dallas women’s music was a very important part of my life.
I loved the songs of Cris Williamson and Holly Near and Alix Dobkin, an out lesbian who later became a friend. In the 1980’s I helped form a group called Among Friends which brought music and feminist speakers to Dallas and beganTLC the Texas Lesbian Conference that was held annually for many years after. The amazing feminist, Sonia Johnson, became a friend and advisor.I participated as a plaintiff in Morales v. Texas—a case designed to overturn what was then called the Texas Sodomy Law. Morales bogged down in a controversy over whether it was a civil or criminal case, and became just one of the cases that later led to Supreme Court overturning such laws in all states. I organized a ‘coming out’ project that gathered names of people willing to be part of a full page ad in the Dallas Morning News. When the News refused to publish the ad because they said our names could be the same as people who weren’t gay and there was too much liability for them, I ran the ad in the Dallas Observer with all the names blacked out in protest. The Coming Out Day ad also became a tradition for many years.
I can’t enumerate the meetings and conferences I helped plan, organized and attended. In addition to working in the public sphere I was busy transforming the practice of abortion. I attended every conference and brought new medical ideas back to keep my clinic medically excellent. And with my staff I developed deeper and more effective ways of counseling women and determining their needs. My colleague Sallie Stratton and so many others were part of the experience of constantly deepening and improving our service to women. I wrote constantly about the work we were doing and shared every new development with my colleagues. Some of them appreciated and admired the work we were doing. Others thought we were making the movement vulnerable by acknowledging the emotional, spiritual, and ethical complexity of abortion. In those years we were mercilessly picketed -- Operation Rescue filled our parking lot, the clinic was vandalized with red paint made to look like blood, and one of the earliest ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centers’ a Catholic based antiabortion establishment called the White Rose, moved in across the hall from us. We worked with the Attorney General of Texas, Jim Mattox, to establish categories in the Yellow Pages so that women would be able to tell what was a real clinic and what was a fake.
All these years later and with the advent of the Internet it is still nearly impossible to determine if you are calling someone who is pro-choice or not. There were a number of in-depth articles about the work we were doing, such as one in D Magazine. We were also covered by many TV shows including a long piece on a show called West 52nd Street. Every legislative session we fought the efforts of the antis to make abortion less accessible. Locally a group of abortion protesters started using an amplifi er to do their ‘counseling’ in front of my clinic. Winston Wilder’s admonition: “May the blood from your crotch rise up against you, you whore” could be distinctly heard even above the traffic on Central Expressway! With the help of Neil Cogan, Constitutional Attorney from SMU, and City Councilors like Lori Palmer, we got the Dallas City Council to pass an ordinance banning the use of amplified sound outside schools, nursing homes, hospitals, and clinics. We even got a letter from Stanley Marcus supporting that one.
We struggled through ordinances about disposal of fetal tissue after a clinic left fetal remains in a dumpster, and the antis had a field day. We had death threats and bomb threats and visits from national anti-luminaries like Joseph Scheidler and Randall Terry. We learned that Terry was planning to hold a press conference on our parking lot. In those days the police really didn’t do much to remove the antis even from our private property —so we had a small crew of butchy women with leaf blowers who just had to neaten up the grounds at the same time Terry was speaking. One of the few moments of glee in the troubling battle outside my clinic. Another memorable episode was when the antis rented the billboard above our building. The billboard read, “Abortion is Murder—Take it Personally”. But somehow overnight it was transformed to read ”Abortion is Personal”. Once we dressed in white and walked behind the national abortion rights activist Bill Baird who was carrying a cross in the middle of downtown Dallas to protest an evangelical gathering. Every year on January 22 when Dallas decides to become frigidly cold we had marches and fundraisers and signature ads and everything we could think of to bring attention to the fact that abortion was constitutionally protected.
It was only after the Supreme Court’s 1989 decision in Webster that my thinking and tactics transformed. I came to the shocking realization that we really could lose abortion rights--that the Supreme Court was just politics—and that everything could change. For nearly a year I was totally lost. I couldn’t give speeches or interviews because I didn’t know what to say anymore. I didn’t go to my national conventions because I couldn’t bear to be with people who I thought were still in deep denial about the fact that the way we had been proceeding WASN’T WORKING. I threw out my old arguments and went inside myself to find what was truest for me. Throughout all these years my own therapy played a huge role in how I was thinking. I took on new ideas about honesty and how to work with conflict. I transformed my clinic into a highly imperfect but idealistic nonhierarchical organization. I took on the most troubling abortion questions about life and death, fetal tissue, and spirituality and addressed them in our patient materials and counseling. The windows of the White Rose across the hall from us were often filled with enlarged posters of dismembered fetuses. For months we tried to cover the windows or force the Catholic landlord, who had purchased the building after we were already there, to make the posters be removed.
Finally, we realized that we were trying to cover the pictures up because we were scared and didn’t know how and hadn’t been willing to deal with the reality of fetal development with our patients. We had a long staff meeting to explore our own feelings about fetal development. Then we began to ask each woman in counseling if she had seen the posters, or others like them, and how she was feeling about what was inside her. We asked if she would like to view the fetal tissue after the abortion, and one of our colleagues in another state created a notebook of photographs of tissue after the abortion so that we could use those in counseling. It wasn’t that we wanted women to look at the tissue or not--but we wanted to feel confident that the woman was at peace with her choice.
Martha Tiller (1940- ) VFA
Public relations executive Martha Tiller got hooked on journalism in the seventh grade. Combining this interest with acting in school plays, she decided that the relatively new medium of television would be her chosen career. She pursued a B.F.A. in broadcasting at The University of Texas at Austin. Working through college by producing Voice of America radio programs in Spanish and working on-camera and in the control room at what would shortly become Austin’s public television station, Martha earned her degree with high honors in just three years. After graduation she headed to New York City—a place she had never been, with no job, knowing no one and having no place to live. Her first brush with gender bias came in her first week when she was turned down for jobs with “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “Candid Camera” and Broadway producer Leland Hayward. All because she couldn’t take shorthand!
To the chagrin of more than 100 longtime employees who applied for the job, Martha managed to land a position at CBS where she coordinated commercials between the network and advertising agencies. She moved on at CBS to jobs as a production secretary and assistant to a producer. Wanting to advance to a production associate position, the associate director and director, Martha soon learned that those were professional career-track jobs that required union membership. Unfortunately, only men were in the union. So, figuring out that a high-level television career was too lofty a dream, she returned to Texas to marry David Tiller, who had just returned from Vietnam. She found a position in public relations, then went to work for the State of Texas during John Connally’s tenure as governor. A volunteer job helping host visiting dignitaries at the official opening of the LBJ Library resulted in a surprise invitation to join the post-White House staff of President and Mrs. Lyndon Johnson.
During that incredibly diverse and exciting assignment, the light bulb came on for Martha. At the November 1975 Conference on Women in Public Life hosted at the LBJ Library, she heard Liz Carpenter, Gloria Steinem, Barbara Jordan, Molly Ivins, and Time magazine’s Isabelle Shelton do some consciousness-raising. That was Martha’s day of awakening. From that day forward, she became increasingly outspoken about the status of women. In 1976 her husband was offered a lucrative position in Dallas. Since the couple had agreed that the one earning the most money would lead, the Tillers moved north.
Once in Dallas, a well-meaning friend showed Martha a copy of D Magazine with cover story about how to succeed in Dallas. Bottom line, the article said, “Women were to smile, look pretty and keep their mouth shut. Women should not express an opinion on anything.” Fortunately, Martha’s friend Liz Carpenter had given her the name of Dallas Times Herald women’s editor Vivian Castleberry and suggested calling her. Through Vivian, Martha met Virginia Whitehill, Louise Raggio, and a host of strong, accomplished Dallas women. They introduced Martha to membership in two leading Dallas organizations that supported the cause of women—The Dallas Summit and the Women’s Issues Network. Martha ultimately served as president of both groups.
For a short time, Martha worked as an account executive at a leading advertising/public relations firm before being appointed by President Jimmy Carter as public affairs director for the U.S. Office of Education’s five-state regional office in Dallas. By the By the time she completed her appointment in 1980, Martha was offered the director of public relations position at a new downtown hotel. While there, a headhunter called her about a PR director’s position with one of the world’s largest real estate developers headquartered in Dallas. Although she wasn’t looking to leave her hotel position, Martha took the interview just for the experience. While waiting to be interviewed, she noticed the company’s annual report cover featured only white, middle-aged men. “That’s trouble,” Martha told herself. After three call-backs and hours of interviews up the corporate executive chain, she got to the office of the president, who asked, “Are you married? And do you have children.” “Yes, on both accounts,” Martha replied. And with that, she exited the office.
By 1982 she convinced the hotel to become her client, which bankrolled her into own PR practice. During the first six months in business she made three times the amount of money she would have expected an employer to pay her for a full year. Client base, staff and billings doubled every six months. And the rest is history. Looking back, Martha says she often wonders what might have been if the television network had permitted women to rise to the highest ranks, if a presidential appointment had generated the same high-level offers men received in their post-appointment era, and if large corporations had appreciated and hired women for more than their secretarial skills. “I only hope today’s young women appreciate the extended opportunities they now have and pray they realize that women are not yet equals. We must all keep working in the vineyard,” Martha concludes. Her papers will be archived in the DeGolyer Library at SMU.
Sandra Tinkham (1944- ) VFA
Sandra’s student experience at Southern Methodist University was the catalyst for her involvement in the Women’s Movement in 1962. That freshman year opened her eyes to issues women were confronting that she had never considered before. In 1965, Sandra was named to the planning committee for the first SMU Women’s Symposium and the Education of Women for Social and Political Leadership. The symposium was the first inter-generational program of its kind in the nation and it laid the foundation for Sandra’s continuing involvement in women’s issues. She went on to become a founding member of Women for Change, Inc., the Women’s Center of Dallas, the Women’s Issues Network, and The Dallas Summit—all at the core of feminist activism in the 1970s through mid 1990s.
In 1969, two years after graduation, Sandra joined the Dean of Women’s staff at SMU, where she helped staff that year’s Women’s Symposium, worked on the first SMU Commission on the Status of Women Report, assisted in writing the first grant request to the United Methodist Church, which provided initial funding for the university’s women’s studies program, and established SMU’s Women’s Center. After leaving SMU in 1974 with the birth of her first child, Sandra turned to community volunteerism. She served as board president of the YWCA, delegate to the World YWCA Meeting in1980, and as Women’s Council president in 1987. All of those organizations provided her opportunities to support women in transition—displaced homemakers, women considering a return to college and women fighting for reproductive rights.
In 1989, Sandra returned to SMU to coordinate the Women’s Symposium part-time until 1992 when she became full-time director of the Human Resource/Women’s Center and coordinator of the Women’s Symposium until 2000. Now retired, Sandra looks back at those strong reminders that challenges confronting women have not ended and that the role of the university in preparing women for the future is imperative. A native of Baltimore, Sandra earned a B.A. in history at SMU in 1966 and an M.A. in history in 1969.
Marisa Treviño
Marisa Treviño is President of Treviño TodaMedia LLC and the publisher/founder of the English-language Latino news site Latina Lista. With the goal of creating dialogue across communities and borders, Marisa focuses her coverage on Latino and social justice issues pertaining to education, immigration, women, and families.
Her site has been recognized by Hispanic magazine, Hispanic Business and the Daily Reviewer as one of the top Chicana/ Hispanic blogs in the country.
In addition, Marisa is a 16-year freelance opinion journalist whose columns appearing in USA Today, the Rio Grande Guardian and is syndicated across the country in both English and Spanish. She has been interviewed on NPR, CNN, Al Jazeera English and CNN.com regarding her political perspective as it relates to the Latino community. Aside from Latina Lista and her opinion columns, Marisa is an award-winning playwright. She lives in the greater Dallas area.
Phyllis Tucker (1937- )
Officially entering the Women’s Movement in 1976, Phyllis joined the Texas chapter of NOW in 1978, and went on to become president of the state organization in both 1980 and 1990. After graduating with an associate’s degree, she worked as the first female chemist in the Houston petroleum industry. In the Houston community, Phyllis became immersed in a number of women’s concerns. Among them were employment/labor issues, the ERA, international women’s rights, reproductive rights, violence against women, minority rights, and civil rights. She volunteered with WIRES, a call center for abused women, and the Houston Area Women’s Center, a shelter for women and victims of rape. Phyllis also focused community action through her leadership on Houston’s Women’s Rights Coordinating Council.
Nikki Van Hightower (1939- ) VFA
Nikki describes her life this way: “Throughout my life I have been conscious of discrimination against women. However, until the advent of the Women’s Movement, I was uncertain as to what could be done about it. In 1969 I moved to New York with my husband and enrolled in the Ph.D. Program at New York University (NYU) in the field of political science. Although I had received a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Houston, I had learned little about the political or social status of women. And, while there were no courses or encouragement about the study of women offered at NYU either, there was an active women’s movement in the New York area that was lacking in Houston; and I was intrigued. Ironically, there was not a single female professor teaching in the Political Science Department at NYU throughout my entire time in the doctoral program (1970 to 1975).
In 1972 I began thinking seriously about a dissertation topic. Although I was not involved in the women’s rights movement at the time, the activism drew my attention to the role of women in politics, which seemed an excellent “cutting-edge” topic on which to focus my dissertation. So, for the first time (1973), I started delving into the subject of women in politics. It was eye-opening for to me to learn that virtually no research had been conducted. For the purposes of my dissertation, my research options were minimal. Fortunately, many studies had been conducted in the fields of sociology and psychology. What I ascertained from research in those disciplines was that the socialization of women was highly discouraging to their seeking leadership roles such as elective office. Regardless, with the 1972 elections, the number of women candidates had increased. With almost no help from the department at NYU, I wrote my dissertation on women who ran for state and national office in the 1972 election from the New York City-Long Island area. The dissertation was entitled, The Politics of Female Socialization. The study centered on the backgrounds and motivations of the 64 women who ran for office in that area.
What I learned about the discrimination and discouragement women experienced while attempting to realize their full potential in life served as the inspiration for me to transition my role from that of interested observer to that of active participant for change. I began by joining the local Long Island chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW). Later I helped found another chapter of NOW further west on the Island and served as president of that new chapter.
After completing the Ph.D. Program at NYU, in 1974 I returned to my former home in Houston, TX and continued my activism with the Houston Chapter of NOW. After two years as a faculty member in the Political Science Department of the University of Houston, I was appointed Women’s Advocate for the City of Houston (a position in the Office of the Mayor). My task was to press for equal pay and employment opportunities for women employees and defend women who were subjected to sexual harassment. After my first few months as Women’s Advocate, it became abundantly clear that I was in a token position and, without the necessary increased political pressure, there would continue to be little enthusiasm for changing the status of women in city government.
I refocused my attention to political mobilization and organization of women in the community —activities that attracted a substantial amount of media attention as well as the wrath of the members of the all male City Council. Included in those community organizing efforts was working with individuals and groups to establish services for women related to sexual assault, domestic violence, reproductive rights, and other sorely lacking needs. That led to the founding of a not for profit organization called the Houston Area Women’s Center (HAWC), where I served as president of the board of directors. In 1977 the Women’s Center opened a shelter for battered women (only the second such shelter in the State of Texas at the time), set up a 24-hour hotline for victims of sexual assault, and established the Women’s Information Referral and Exchange Service (WIRES) to provide an information and referral service link for women in the community. It required an enormous amount of dedication from a courageous group of volunteers to create this new organization, and the HAWC continues to be a solid and highly regarded organization to this day while providing a wide range of crisis services for women and their families in Houston.
Partially because of my work as Women’s Advocate, Houston was selected as location for the International Women’s Year (IWY) National Convention in 1977. I was the mayor’s liaison to the IWY Planning Committee, served on the Texas IWY Coordinating Committee (chairing the Resolutions Committee), and was a delegate from Texas to the IWY National Conference. But the activism and involvement of the Women’s Advocate, and the media attention received, did not set well with the all male members of the City Council. Claiming that there was no need for a women’s advocate any more than for a men’s advocate (ignoring the fact that each of them served as men’s advocates), they reduced my salary to $1 per year—their way of expressing how they valued both the position and my work. The procedural coupe, however, backfired and became instead an insult to and a rallying cry for women throughout the Houston community. The salary reduction resulted in massive demonstrations objecting to the action of City Council and became a lightning rod for the toxic issue of the male leaders’ unwillingness to share their power with women.
The media was fascinated by the conflict, funds poured into the Houston Area Women’s Center, and I garnered numerous awards and recognitions for my work on behalf of women. Some of those are: Houston Breakthrough: Woman of the Year - 1977; Women in Communications Matrix Award: “Outstanding Woman of the Year,” 1977; Harris County Women’s Political Caucus: “Outstanding Woman of the Year,” 1977; Redbook Magazine: one of fourteen women “Making it Happen in Texas,” 1977; Ladies Home Journal: nominated for “Woman of the Year in Local Government and Politics,” 1978. By executive intervention, the mayor managed to salvage the job of the Women’s Advocate. The IWY Conference was held in Houston, and, fortunately, the Houston Area Women’s Center (and I) survived the controversy. Nevertheless, when a new mayor was elected in 1978, his first act was to fire the women’s advocate during a speaking engagement to the (all male) Houston Rotary Club, an act that drew considerable applause.
I was then hired as a talk show host for a local radio station and continued working as a voice for women’s rights as the President of the Board of the Houston Area Women’s Center. In 1979 I was honored with the Women at Work: “National Broadcast Award for Radio and Television Editorials”. Later that year, I became the first Executive Director of the Houston Area Women’s Center and functioned in that capacity until elected Harris County Treasurer in 1987, where I served one four year term. In 1993 I began my affiliation with Texas A&M University where I have continued my efforts on behalf of women through my academic work by teaching a course on women in politics, serving as the Interim Director of the Texas A&M Women’s Studies Program, organizing and serving as Director of the Program for the Reduction of Rural Family Violence, and conducting research and developing curriculum in the area of family violence for all health-related schools in the Texas A&M System as a Senior Lecturer in the TAMU School of Rural Public Health, Health Science Center. I was recently recognized in the University Quarterly Magazine (Winter 2009) for my donation of personal papers in 1996 to the Houston Women’s Archive and Research Center at the University of Houston.
Mary Margaret Vogelson (1940- ) VFA
Listing her occupation as “itinerant folk singer,” Mary Vogelson belies the opinion that feminists have no sense of humor. The only female economics major and class officer at Grinnell College, she was the first female chief negotiator for AFGE Lodge 12 in the Bureau of Labor statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor, helping to promote women’s rights within the department and in the labor movement. She started and led the first inner city Camp Fire Girls groups in Washington, D.C., and Dallas. With her mother and some young Dallas women, she helped establish EXPLORE, a course for women to examine their lives. She taught in that program (perhaps this is where she sang folk songs), which eventually became part of the Dallas County Community College District curriculum. In the early 1970s, Mary Margaret was the youngest of 50 founders and was the first president of Women for Change in Dallas, when jobs, health and childcare were primary issues for women. Mary helped begin “male-style” networking for women, counseling and promotion of women for political offices. Since 1985 she has been a member of The League of Women Voters representing LWV in both State and local water issues. She is deeply concerned with the environment: “No aspect of our existence has a greater effect on our lives than the health and well being that result from our environmental choices.”
Winnie Booksh Wackwitz (1925- ) VFA
For nearly 85 years, Winnie has been the pilot of her large life. Fascinated by flight after seeing an air show at age five, Winnie grew up to help build Boeing B17s and B29s during World War II. In addition, she logged the required 35 hours of flight training to become a WASP, just in time for the war’s end. Nevertheless, Winnie earned private and commercial pilot licenses, as well as a flight instructor rating. Working her way through Louisiana State University by teaching flying, Winnie soon found jobs for women scarce by the time she finished college in 1952. So she went to work in Rio de Janeiro as a draftsperson with the Brazilian Air Force, which now exhibits her drawings in its museum. There she met her Dutch husband and, in 1956, the couple and their son returned to the U.S. Winnie supported the family while her husband went to college. Yet when he began working at Texas Instruments, Winnie’s husband made it clear that Winnie was to stay home in Plano, care for their two young children, and be content as a homemaker. After 10 years, Winnie learned about and joined Women for Change in Dallas.
One of her first feminist efforts was compiling and publishing Fantastic Womanhood, a course educating women about feminism. As an organizer of the Plano NOW chapter, Winnie worked on ratification of the ERA in Texas, campaigned to get radio and TV networks to hire female announcers, produced a small newspaper called The Feminist Echo, and finished 25 years of “service” in her marriage so she could qualify for Social Security while driving a school bus and getting a divorce. Once she saved enough money to return to flying, Winnie bought a Cessna and flew it 4,000 miles to Alaska. Often joined by her daughter Dina, she flew until arthritis made it impossible to climb out of a cockpit. Today, Winnie treasures the memories of her flying years almost as much as those of her feminist pioneering. Winnie currently serves as a VFA board member.
Linda Pilcher Wassenich (1943- ) VFA
Linda’s lifetime of service to the League of Women Voters was inspired in 1963 when the League in her hometown of Tyler, Texas, helped her attend an International Student United Nations Conference in Switzerland. She joined the League in Dallas in 1970 and its board in 1973. Linda’s second son attended his first League board meeting when he was three weeks old. President of the Dallas League from 1995to 1999, she was then asked to join the board of directors of the League of Women Voters of Texas. Since 2001, Linda has served as vice president of public relations for LWV-TX. One of her proudest accomplishments is expansion of distribution of the League of Women Voters’ non-partisan Voters Guides, available to libraries in all Texas counties with at least 15,000 residents. Named Social Worker of the Year in 1988 and winning a Lifetime Achievement Award in Social Work in 2002, Linda has achieved many awards for her professional and volunteer service in other endeavors.
Taking brief time out to care for her two young sons, Linda has served as a family court counselor, in several executive positions with the Visiting Nurse Association of Dallas, and as the first executive director of the Incest Recovery Association. Her advocacy efforts were instrumental in establishing HIV education and AIDS prevention programs at UT-Southwestern Medical School, in starting a phone line for latchkey children, and VNA programs for pediatric home care for teenage mothers and their babies, as well as for elderly people remaining in their homes. Though diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998, Linda has never flagged in her devotion to her family and community. Today she is on the board of the Human Rights Initiative and the Community Council of Greater Dallas, where she chairs the Advisory Council of the Dallas Area Agency on Aging.
Bobbi Wedlan Weil VFA
Beginning her career in her native Kansas City, Bobbi became a master teacher for the University of Missouri, co-founded Missouri Advocates for the Arts (a citizens’ lobby that increased arts funding statewide), managed successful political campaigns for the Missouri House, and was an early advocate at Common Cause in Washington, D.C. and Missouri for campaign finance reform and sunshine laws. Bobbi held executive positions in arts organizations in Kansas City, Washington, D.C. and Denver before coming to Dallas in l981. She worked in public broadcasting at KERA television and radio; and in public affairs at Richards/Gravelle.
As vice-president of corporate communications at KERA, Bobbi led the stations’ community project in race relations at a time when Dallas was experiencing a resurgence of racial tension. She has been honored for professional excellence by PBS, NPR, National Women in Communications, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Dallas Press Club. Among the national advisory committees she served was the Children’s Television Workshop, creator of the award-winning Sesame Street. Bobbi continued her career as a public affairs/communications executive at Dallas’ prestigious Richards/Gravelle.
Bobbi was a founder of the local Gilda’s Club of North Texas, a longtime board member and board chair for Girls Inc. of Dallas, active board member for Planned Parenthood and the Chiapas Project. She serves on the advisory boards for the Archives of Women of the Southwest at Southern Methodist University and the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science. The Boston University graduate was a member of the 1991 Leadership America class and has served on the prestigious Linz Award selection committee. A long-time advocate for improvement of the welfare of girls and women, Bobbi today continues as a management consultant to women-owned businesses and women-run non-profits. Over the years, she has mentored a number of young women who have gone on to successful careers in Texas and around the nation.
Marjorie Schuchat Westberry (1930 -) (vfa) — Marjorie joined Los Angeles NOW in 1971, the year that her daughter was born, hoping that little girls could have the rights and opportunities that were the birthrights of little boys. To her surprise, when the family moved to Dallas there was no local chapter of the National Organization for Women. When Marjorie and Jane Baker met they quickly agreed to build a chapter of Dallas NOW. Because Jane was pregnant she asked Marjorie to be the founding president stating: “I can only give birth to one baby at a time!” Dallas NOW was graciously welcomed by the many women’s groups already in action. It was 1972, the perfect time to join forces on major legislation. The Texas Equal Rights Amendment Passed in November, 1972 after fifteen years of effort.
In 1973, Marjorie was elected to the NOW National Board of Directors where there was a big push for equal air time for women’s issues on radio and television and more women journalists covering serious stories, not just grocery prices. Knowing that citizens own the airwaves and women are more than one half the population, Marjorie, Ruth Thornton, Kaye Gooch, Martha Dickey and others prepared the data to take on Ft Worth’s Channel 5 lawyers. They won every item in a three-page agreement to give women’s issues equal air time. Marjorie served on the Channel 5 Women’s Rights Advisory Council and also the Citizen’s Council, KBOX -KNEZ Radio from 1975 - 1976.
Adventure is something Marjorie prizes. She began her teaching career in Zimbabwe, Africa and stayed four years. On her return she earned her Master’s degree. She earned her Ph.D. in language and literature from Texas Woman’s University in 1982. Her position at Brookhaven College in Dallas began in 1978 to the present. A Fulbright Lecturer post at Swaziland University provided another adventure shared with her grown children in her beloved Africa. This woman has been and continues to be an advocate for civil rights, gay and lesbian rights, justice and peace all of her adult life, Marjorie proudly admits to participating in street demonstrations. Other feminists from the second-wave movements regard “Marge Schuchat,” as we then called her, as the central clearing agency for information on women’s issues.
Charlotte T. Whaley (1925 -) (vfa) — Enrolling in Southern Methodist University at age 40, Charlotte cared for her husband and two sons while earning a degree in English with high honors. Inspired by the women’s movement and campus unrest in the late 1960s, Charlotte felt like a “liberated woman” but was promptly “put in her place” when she was offered a job on the cleaning crew at SMU! Many months later, she was hired as a receptionist/secretary at SMU Press and soon moved into a 12-year post in the editorial department. While learning about editing and publishing on the job, she earned an M.A. at SMU. In 1983 she took early retirement and co-founded Still Point Press, which publishes such fine, limited-edition books as David Farmer’s Stanley Marcus: A Life with Books. Beginning with her master’s thesis on Irish feminist Maud Gonne, Charlotte has written studies of strong and inspiring women including early suffragist Nina Otero-Warren of Santa Fe and pioneering Oklahoma anthropologist Alice Marriott.
Bonnie Wheeler (1944 -) (vfa) — A Bostonian by birth, Wheeler came to Dallas as a professor of English at SMU in 1975. She followed a path typical for second-wave feminist intellectuals: a young Civil Right advocate, she then became viscerally engaged in anti-war and student activist advocacy in college and graduate school (Ph.D., Brown University) and in feminist advocacy groups in New York from 1970 when she was a young professor at Columbia University. At Columbia, she co-founded and shepherded the still successful University Seminar on Women and Society and participated in such groups as the idealistic New York ‘Women’s Group On Androgyny.’ Immediately upon arrival at SMU, the university president appointed her chair of SMU’s Commission on the Status of Women, which she ran successfully in a politically volatile environment. She founded and publicized the first Consciousness Raising Groups in the larger Dallas community. Sparks flew in her televised debates with Phyllis Schlafly.
As a scholar who specializes in the literature and culture of the Middle Ages, Wheeler found it imperative to reject then-prevailing views of the ‘absent pre-modern women,’ especially those from the (seemingly) orthodox, patriarchal European Middle Ages. She founded a peer-reviewed (and wildly successful) book series, The New Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan) that focuses on contemporary analyses of medieval cultures, especially on women’s roles in those cultures. There are now more than 120 books in that series. She has won numerous teaching awards, edited or co-authored 13 books in the medieval field, with special emphasis on women of the Middle Ages, and has mentored dozens of young scholars, many of them women. Today, Bonnie is in her fourth decade teaching literature and directing the Medieval Studies Program at Southern Methodist University. In recognition of her formative role in her field, friend and colleagues around the world have initiated the Bonnie Wheeler Fellowship for young women scholars in need of time to reflect and research. This fellowship pairs each recipient with a senior mentor to help the awardee make the most of the time allotted.
On the national and international fronts, Bonnie has been elected to such national councils as the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship, the Phi Beta Kappa Society, and she was an internationally elected Councilor of the Medieval Academy of America. Wheeler was elected President of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals, and has served on the Board of Directors of the International Medieval Society (Paris). She founded and is currently Director of the International Joan of Arc Society, as well as Founding Co-Chair of the Dallas chapter of Veteran Feminists of America, which has been active since the mid-1990s.
Virginia Whiddon (1928 -) (vfa) — Any woman who remembers having to pay to use the toilet at Dallas Love Field can be grateful to Women for Change in Dallas. Virginia participated in that campaign and others mounted by Women for Change and the Dallas Business and Professional Women in the 1970s. She joined NOW, NARAL and Gray Panthers. As a member of the Texas Women’s Political Caucus, she was at the organizational meeting of the Texas Women’s Political Caucus and served as secretary to its board. Equal pay for women was another of Virginia’s favored causes and she wrote and marched on its behalf.
Virginia Bulkley Whitehill (vfa) — Ginny Whitehill says she inherited her sense of equity and fairness for women from her mother, a suffragist and charter member of the League of Women Voters. Present at the oral argument before the United States Supreme Court during Roe v. Wade, Ginny has worked for decades on behalf of women’s rights. She is co-founder of the Dallas Women’s Coalition, Women’s Issues Network, Dallas Women’s Foundation, The Family Place, Texans for Motherhood by Choice, Women’s Southwest Federal Credit Union, Dallas WPC, Dallas VFA, and the local WEAL. When plans for the Women’s Museum were underway, Ginny was a member of the planning advisory committee. Numerous are her board positions, including the League of Women Voters of Dallas, NARAL, National Network of Women’s Funds, Planned Parenthood of Dallas, the Women’s Council of Dallas County, and Friends of SMU Libraries (DeGolyer Library Archives of Women of the Southwest). Scores of awards have honored Ginny, some of them including the Courage Award from the Association of Women Journalists, the Maura Award from the Women’s Center of Dallas, the Veteran Feminists of America Medal of Honor, American Jewish Congress Woman of Spirit Award, and the Texas Women’s Political Caucus Good Gal Award. Her alma mater, Mount Holyoke College named her a Distinguished Alumna, and the Dallas League of Women Voters honored her with the Myrtle Bulkley Award for Outstanding Service (named after Ginny’s late mother). She is one of 100 distinguished women honored by the Texas Women’s Chamber of Commerce as a Woman of the Century. Her papers are included in the Archives at DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University.
Gloria Johnston Wise (1930 - ) (vfa) — Childcare, minority rights and Democratic Party support are foremost on Gloria’s agenda. Known with affection by scores of Dallas business and political leaders, Gloria never sat on the sidelines when she observed a social injustice. When her daughter’s high school volleyball team lost their practice space in the school gym so that boys’ basketball team could practice, Gloria wrote to the only women on the Highland Park Independent School District Board, citing requirements of Title IX. Back came the woman’s response from this affluent high school: “Title IX doesn’t apply to us since we do not accept any federal funding.” While her letter didn’t regain the gym for her daughter’s team, it did lend momentum to Gloria’s campaign for social justice. When Presidential Candidate Sen. John Kerry’s Veterans Against the War organized, she started paying attention and participating in Another Mother for Peace. Gloria has long been active in the Dallas League of Women Voters and Democratic Party campaigns, one of which supported high-profile gubernatorial candidate Ann Richards. Through her work on this campaign, Gloria became acquainted with the late political pundit Molly Ivins and former presidential press secretary Liz Carpenter. Gloria retired several years ago from her post as executive director of the Dallas Chapter, American Institute of Architects. Honoring her longtime love of architecture and contemporary design, Gloria entered her eighth decade by commissioning the design and building of a home in Urban Reserve, a “green” community in near East Dallas. Born in Arkansas, Gloria earned her BA from Hendrix College.
Priscilla Wofford (vfa) — Priscilla’s role in the Women’s Movement was a logical outcome of the work she began as a civil rights organizer, grant writer and facilitator. Born in Dallas in 1939, Priscilla was reared by a Methodist missionary mother and SMU professor/minister father to question convention, be faithful to justice and search for the truth. Among her childhood mentors was Vivian Castleberry, her college-age babysitter. By 1960, Priscilla had become a wife and mother, but a few years later—after moving to Kansas--she was “kicked out of her Cinderella fantasies” by a divorce and subsequent juggling of life as a single mother of two children, a student at Wichita State University, jobs, church mission projects, and heading Cub Scout and Brownie activities.
By the mid 1960s, Priscilla was “adopted” by some Vietnam-era Air Force wives and widows at her university. Although their Air Force “family” helped women enormously, none was prepared to earn a civilian living, live in off-base housing or enter a new life. Fortunately, a NOW chapter in Kansas City stepped in to aid the women and help them form strong Commissions on the Status of Women for the city and state. When she moved back to Dallas, Priscilla was bewildered to find no such programs. But soon she reconnected with Vivian Castleberry, Paula Latimer, Charlotte Stewart, filmmakers Cynthia and Allen Mondell, and journalist Jane Sumner. By 1980, Priscilla had helped organize Media and Social Security Task Forces, saw the release of the Mondells’ I Remember Mama social commentary, and witnessed U.S. Congressional passage of legislation that enforces fairness to women even through today.
She looks back on those years with gratitude for the opportunity to work with many extraordinary women in ridding Texas of old legal inequities in banking, family law and pay. The local Community Action program urged her to concentrate for a while on consciousness-raising and program planning. By the mid-sixties she had begun to suspect that women needed organizing far more than some of the CAP actions, when she was adopted by some US Air Force wives at WSU - and many widows. During the beginning of the Viet Nam war the cream of the jet jockey cadre kept going off and not coming back to wives and families. Although the Air Force “family” helped enormously, none of these women were prepared to make a civilian living; to go off base housing and enter another life. Fortunately, a NOW chapter in Kansas City was well founded and had wonderful training materials - so for a year she jumped in her car on weekends - made the drive, and founded Wichita’s first NOW chapter. Those were heady days. Priscilla was instrumental in forming very strong Commissions on the Status of Women for the city and state, so imagine her puzzlement in 1971 when she moved back to her hometown and found no such Commissions.
By 1980 Wofford had facilitated the Media and Social Security Task Forces working with Charlotte Stewart through hours of interviews and transcriptions, documenting the grotesquely unfair fate of many older divorced women and their children. Priscilla also worked with WEAL, NOW, WFC and other women’s organizations to rid Texas of legal inequalities in credit, family law, and pay.
Trea C. Yip (1952 - ) Born in Beijing and reared in Hong Kong, Trea came to the U.S. in 1972 to further her education. She earned her bachelor’s degree in 1976, the same year that she and her husband began an antique business for her parents in Los Angeles. After moving to Dallas in 1977, they established an import and wholesale business in decorative home accessories. Trea diverted to commercial real estate investment in 1990 and formed TY Commercial Group, formerly known as TY Equity Group. Determined to give back to her community, Trea has supported Girls, Inc., Dallas Women’s Foundation (where she is currently Board Chair), Women’s Funding Network, Women Moving Millions, and the Women’s Media Center. She is an advocate for women in achieving true democracy in the media, for gender equality, insurance coverage for low-income women in pending healthcare reform, and of legislation punishing domestic human trafficking in Texas.
Linda Young (1946 - )Not even her own honeymoon stood between Linda and celebration of the eighteenth anniversary of Women’s Equality Day in Houston. On their first morning of married life, newlyweds Linda and Bob skipped their wedding breakfast to participate in a large downtown demonstration kicked off with a speech by the Hon. Sarah Weddington. Linda was already active in the Texas chapter of the National Women’s Political Caucus, where she held several offices before serving two terms as state president. In 1999 she began serving on the national NWPC board and today is in her second term as vice president for development. Always a champion for women’s equality and advancement, Linda helped establish early programs of the Texas Council on Family Violence and the National Family Violence Hotline. She also served as the Texas researcher on the original American Association of University Women’s study addressing discriminatory perceptions against young girls in public schools, including their skills in math and science. Today, Linda—who is completing her doctorate at Texas Woman’s University—is special assistant to the vice president for external affairs in the Austin Community College District.
Senator Judith Zaffirini (1946 -) (vfa) — Growing up in Laredo with three sisters and a working mother, Judith Zaffirini was self-supporting at 17 and married at 18. She worked her way through The University of Texas at Austin, earning BB, MA and Ph.D. degrees, all with a 3.9 average. Returning to Laredo with her husband in 1970, Dr. Zaffirini evolved swiftly as a leader in academic, political, civic, and civil rights arenas, working tirelessly for women (as well as for the very young, the very old, and persons with disabilities). Among her achievements are founding and serving as the first president of the Webb County Women’s Political Caucus, serving as Title IX coordinator at Laredo Junior College, and significantly participating in the Texas and National Democratic parties, campaigning for women and men who supported women’s rights. In 1986 she became the first Hispanic woman elected to the Texas Senate, defeating five men. Now in her seventh term, she has carried all 17 counties in her large district. Senator Zaffirini has worked tirelessly to improve education, health and human services, and to secure aid for victims of rape and domestic violence. She has earned more than 650 awards for her legislative, public service, and professional work in her firm Zaffirini Communications.