WOMEN WHO MADE HISTORY…TODAY

1997Nov 14, Sara Lister, Assistant Secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs, resigned in the wake of political pressure after she called Marines “extremists” and mocked their uniforms as “checkerboard fancy.” 2002Nov 14, Nancy Pelosi became the 1st woman to lead a party in the US Congress after Democrats voted 177 – 29 in support of the liberal from SF. Robert Menendez of New Jersey; he was elected as caucus chairman, the highest post ever held by an Hispanic. 2007Nov 14, A Saudi court sentenced a woman (19) who had been gang raped to six months in jail and 200 lashes, more than doubling her initial penalty for being in the car of a man who was not a relative. The court also roughly doubled prison sentences for the seven men convicted of raping the woman. Their new sentences ranged from two to nine years. The court also banned the lawyer from defending her, confiscated his license to practice law and summoned him to a disciplinary hearing later that month. 2008Nov 14, The US Army promoted its first woman, Ann Dunwoody, to the rank of four-star general. 2014Nov 14, Jane M. Byrne (b.1934), Chicago’s 1st woman mayor (1979-1983), died. In 1994 she authored “My Chicago.”