Vintage Letters From Working Women Of The 1970s And 1980s

What 'Leaning In' Was Like In The '70s And '80s

We've been talking a lot about women and work recently, from "leaning in" to the depressing fact that women still make 77 cents to a man's dollar. However, women have been having these conversations for decades.

Maria Popova of Brainpickings recently shared extracts from "Letters To Ms.", a book edited by the late Mary Thom. The letters from women in the '70s and '80s -- from a female gas station attendant tired of being treated as unqualified to a professor who sued for equal pay -- are beyond awesome.

We especially love this one, written by taxi driver Jill Wood in 1980:

One day last week I pulled up to a four-way stop in my taxi. At one of the other stop signs sat a police officer in a chase cruiser, and at the third, a telephone installer in a Bell Canada van. What made the occasion memorable was the fact that all three of us were women. We celebrated with much joyful laughter and raised thumbs.

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