Older’s presidency decades in the making
Congratulations to Shannon Older upon her election as first woman president of the Fort Orange Club, reported by new club member Paul Grondahl (“Club mirrors U.S. in selecting first woman leader,” Nov. 11). I wonder if Grondahl or even Older realize the events that made her history-making ascension possible.
Today, formerly private clubs in New York state admit women members due to the tireless advocacy by numerous women’s groups and the clout of Gov. Mario Cuomo and Chief Judge Judith Kaye who prohibited state employees in their branches of government from conducting state business there. They recognized the impropriety of excluding women from venues where public and private decision makers and influencers discussed business or simply gathered to get to know one another when the clubs’ memberships dues were subsidized by public funds in the form of business tax deductions.
The clubs’ and their members’ resistance to reform was formidable. But, as the names of businesses and firms belonging to these clubs became known, as more women entered the ranks of the professions, and as the public’s awareness of the issue heightened, the clubs’ policies finally changed, not coincidentally as their memberships were waning and tax laws were changing.
I write this letter not to relitigate an ancient wrong that has since been remedied but rather to inform younger people of but one battle women waged on the march to true equality before the law and in society.
Albany 1981-82 President, Capital District Chapter, Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York