Fifty years after a small group of Tucson women drafted an ordinance and wore 59-cent buttons on their coats, the Pima County/Tucson Women's Commission filled the YWCA's Dr. Laura Banks-Reed Center for Gender and Racial Equity on Women's Equality Day. Chair Kimberly Fitch opened with a land acknowledgment and the full Commission on its feet; a surprise appearance by Congresswoman Gabby Giffords set the tone — “I'm not losing my voice.” Supervisor Jen Allen and Mayor Regina Romero read a joint City–County proclamation, three Tucson City of Gastronomy chef ambassadors spoke about food as heritage and politics, County Administrator Jan Lesher looked back to 1984, Commissioner Stephanie Noriega answered “how are the women of this county actually doing?” with data, Coach Lucy ran trivia and introduced the 2026 Arizona Women's Hall of Fame class, Daisy Jenkins delivered a warning that progress is not permanent, and 86-year-old founding Executive Director Alison Hughes closed the keynote with Shirley Chisholm's folding chair. Treasurer Molly Ring made the ask. Kim Fitch named the superpower: you vote.
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Every segment, in order. Tap a face to read the recap; tap a time to watch it.
0:00Broadcast open & closeProduced by The Force for Health® Network
1:22Kimberly FitchChair, Pima County/Tucson Women's Commission
4:41Gabby GiffordsFormer U.S. Congresswoman
6:58Jen AllenChair, Pima County Board of Supervisors (District 3)
12:44Regina RomeroMayor of Tucson
25:34Angela GarciaPrivate chef
26:35Susan FultonThe Gourmet Girls
27:45Mary StigerThe Gourmet Girls
28:01Shuka ParkerChef
28:59Jan LesherPima County Administrator
34:10Stephanie NoriegaCommissioner (Ward 5)
44:06Lucy HowellCommissioner
49:53Melanie SturgeonBoard Chair, Arizona Women's Hall of Fame (watching live from Gilbert)
53:27Paula Cullison2026 Arizona Women's Hall of Fame Inductee (joining from Phoenix)
55:09Daisy JenkinsRetired Raytheon executive
1:02:27Alison HughesFounding Executive Director (1976)
1:13:34“I Am an Ambitious Woman”Words by Alison Hughes
1:18:20Molly RingTreasurer, Pima County/Tucson Women's Commission| 0:00 | Broadcast opens — welcome & Legacy Reel |
| 1:22 | Kimberly Fitch — Chair, Pima County/Tucson Women's Commission |
| 4:41 | Gabby Giffords — Former U.S. Congresswoman |
| 6:58 | Jen Allen — Chair, Pima County Board of Supervisors (District 3) |
| 12:44 | Regina Romero — Mayor of Tucson |
| 25:34 | Angela Garcia — Private chef |
| 26:35 | Susan Fulton — The Gourmet Girls |
| 27:45 | Mary Stiger — The Gourmet Girls |
| 28:01 | Shuka Parker — Chef |
| 28:59 | Jan Lesher — Pima County Administrator |
| 34:10 | Stephanie Noriega — Commissioner (Ward 5) |
| 37:15 | ⚠ Technical glitch (~6 min) — video degrades, audio OK |
| 44:06 | Lucy Howell — Commissioner |
| 49:53 | Melanie Sturgeon — Board Chair, Arizona Women's Hall of Fame (watching live from Gilbert) |
| 53:27 | Paula Cullison — 2026 Arizona Women's Hall of Fame Inductee (joining from Phoenix) |
| 55:09 | Daisy Jenkins — Retired Raytheon executive |
| 1:02:27 | Alison Hughes — Founding Executive Director (1976) |
| 1:13:34 | “I Am an Ambitious Woman” — Words by Alison Hughes |
| 1:18:20 | Molly Ring — Treasurer, Pima County/Tucson Women's Commission |
The program palm card
The keepsake program from the night — run of show on the front, the joint City–County proclamation on the back. Print it, share it, keep it.
The stream opened with the partners on screen — City of Tucson, Pima County, the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame, Tucson City of Gastronomy and the YWCA of Southern Arizona — and a challenge to everyone watching: know your history, understand the power of your voice, and use it at the ballot box and beyond.
“Our ask is this: know your history, use your voice, and get involved. Now that we've reflected back, let's all move ahead and propel forward together.”
Chair Kim Fitch opened with a land acknowledgment of the Tohono O'odham Nation and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, recognized the elected officials and staff in the room, and called the full Commission to its feet by name — then asked every former commissioner in the room to stand. She closed the night by naming the superpower.
“We would like to honor the tribal nations who have served as caretakers of this land from time immemorial and respectfully acknowledge the ancestral homelands of the Tohono O'odham Nation and the multi-millennial presence of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe within Pima County.”
“We're surrounded by commissioners who are dedicated, diverse, talented, fierce, and so impressive. I am in awe of them.”
“We look forward to shaping the next fifty years. And remember what your superpower is. You vote. That's your superpower.”
Gabby Giffords
The surprise guest. Congresswoman Giffords — who represented Arizona's 8th District and now leads a national gun-safety movement — spoke for two minutes about recovery, voice, and the choice in front of the country. The room stood before she said a word and stood again when she finished.
“My recovery is a daily fight, but fighting makes me stronger. Today, I struggle to speak, but I'm not losing my voice. America needs all of us to speak out, even when you have to fight to find the words.”
“We are at a crossroads. We can protect our families, the future. We can vote. We can be on the right side of history. Please join us in this fight.”
The only woman currently on the Board of Supervisors reminded the room that the 19th Amendment was not handed to women — it was organized, marched and hunger-struck for — then laid out the pay-equity math: 85 cents on the dollar on average, 65 for Black women, 58 for Latinas and Native American women, and $42.7 billion in wages lost by Black women in 2023 alone. She closed with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Dolly Parton.
“Women were not handed that right. They fought for it. For decades they organized, marched, went to jail, held hunger strikes, lobbied elected officials, and refused to be silenced. They were mocked, dismissed, threatened, and told to sit down and be quiet. They refused.”
“Today, women earn on average about 85 cents for every dollar earned by men. But averages can hide the full story. For Black women, that drops to 65 cents. For Latinas and Native American women, it falls even further — to 58 cents.”
“Every one of us should find the place we care about and become a decision maker. Run for office, serve on boards, join a commission, lead an organization, speak up, step forward, vote.”
“Stand up for yourself, stand up for the women beside you, and stand up for the women and girls who are coming after us.”
Mayor Romero called the commissioners to the stage and read the joint City of Tucson–Pima County proclamation recognizing August 26, 2026 as Women's Equality Day and celebrating the Commission's 50th. In her remarks she thanked the women who opened the door for her, then made the case for why commissions matter — they bring residents into policymaking — and connected the Commission's work to the Prosperity Initiative: 1,200 new affordable units, KIDCO after-school care, violence-interruption sites, and small-business navigators reaching women left out of traditional systems.
“Those of you that have opened the door for us — we have a responsibility to kick that door wide open for the younger generations that are coming after us.”
“Women know how to get things done. We don't need permission. We see a need, we organize, we advocate, and we find a way forward. For fifty years, this commission has turned advocacy into action.”
“Having women at the table matters. Representation matters.”
“The work never stops. And we're so much stronger when we're doing this work together.”
“Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that I, the Mayor of the City of Tucson, Regina Romero, the Tucson City Council, and the Pima County Board of Supervisors do hereby recognize August 26, 2026 as Women's Equality Day and proudly celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Pima County/Tucson Women's Commission.”
A first-generation Chicana, woman-owned business. She said what the whole evening was about in one sentence: food is political, and she fights the same fight through it.
“I am a first-generation Chicana, woman-owned business. I also believe food is political. So we fight the same fight through our food. Everything that I do is a reflection of where I come from.”
With business partner and best friend Mary Stiger, Susan spoke about carrying Tucson's heritage foods to the world as UNESCO City of Gastronomy ambassadors — and about what it means to be a woman business owner and a woman chef.
“We just can't say how important this is — that we bring our food to the world. It is a pleasure to be part of the culinary community and to be a woman business owner and a woman chef.”
Mary let Susan do the talking — 'I'm always the one that talks' — and said simply that it was an honor to celebrate 50 years with the room.
“It's an honor to be here and to be celebrating with you. Susan said it all — I'm always the one that talks.”
From Japan, three years into her own business in Tucson, and — in her words — so happy to be here.
“My name is Shuka Parker. I'm from Japan. I started my business almost three years ago. I'm so happy to be here.”
The County's top administrator joined the Tucson Women's Commission in 1984 and used her time to put the room back there: workplaces dominated by men, pregnancy deciding whether you kept your job, equality on paper that did not mean equality in everyday life. Then the honest ledger of what changed and what hasn't — and who paid for the progress: mothers, teachers, women in boardrooms, women who ran for office.
“Although women gained important legal rights by 1984, equality on paper just did not mean equality in our everyday life.”
“Let's not confuse progress with perfection. Women today still face many challenges. Gender discrimination has not disappeared, and we are still judged by standards that men are simply not held to.”
“That freedom was not handed to us. It was earned — by mothers who insisted that their daughters have opportunities that they never had, by teachers who encouraged girls to pursue subjects that they'd been told were just for the boys, by women who entered the boardrooms when no one expected to see them, by women who ran for office — the most courage on the planet to me, by the way.”
“Let us honor the women who opened the doors before us. Let us honor the many women who walked through them. And let us honor the women who are still coming up and building those doors behind us.”
Stephanie Noriega
Stephanie presented the 50-Year Look Back, Look Forward — every number measured against Arizona, the nation and Pima County's 14 sister counties. Pima has tripled in size since 1976 and doesn't look like the rest of Arizona: more than a third Hispanic or Latina, nearly one in four residents 65+. Women went from 59 cents to 81 cents nationally, but Pima's median income ranks fifth in Arizona and lowest against its peer metros. Her line: the gap isn't only gender, it's regional. The full report lives at pctwc.org.
“For fifty years, the Pima County/Tucson Women's Commission has asked one question: How are the women in this county actually doing? Tonight, we answer that question with data.”
“A number by itself means nothing. A number in context tells the truth.”
“Nationally, women went from 59 cents to the dollar to 81. Real progress. Among Arizona's fifteen counties, our median income ranks fifth. And against our peer metros — Phoenix, Houston, Chicago, Nashville, Oakland, Manhattan — we are the lowest income of them all. Our gap isn't only gender, it's regional.”
“We are all standing here tonight, and together, because we believe that we have the power to make the progress. Over and over again, it's about progress, not perfection. We stand with each other to get the work done.”
Lucy Howell
Coach Lucy — in suffragist purple and gold, not ASU colors — launched the 50th's year-long live poll from the palm card QR, then ran trivia for commemorative shirts and mugs (1975, 16 years at 240 N. Court, 1992, and My Girl Power). Wearing her Hall of Fame liaison hat she walked the 2026 Arizona Women's Hall of Fame class: May Hicks Curtis Hill, the 'Betsy Ross of Arizona'; Dr. Laura Banks-Reed, whose name is on the very room; Paula Cullison, watching from Phoenix; Daisy Jenkins, in the room; and Alison Hughes — whom Lucy nominated into the Hall of Fame Alison helped found.
“If you don't do it today — this is marking the first day of the celebration year of the fiftieth. So we're going to be collecting a lot of information.”
“Which girls' empowerment program was actually launched right here at the Pima County/Tucson Women's Commission? My Girl Power! It started as a committee. The Commission was our fiscal sponsor. We raised money and we took girls to New York and DC to celebrate women who have left their marks on science, civics, and history — and we are looking forward to activating that again.”
“Alison Hughes recruited me into the Pima County/Tucson Women's Commission. Alison Hughes was also very instrumental in founding the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame. So it is my honor that I actually nominated her this past year, and she is being inducted into something that she actually helped start. It's such a full circle for me.”
“She recognized that Arizona didn't have a formal kindergarten program, and she helped organize that. It's like one person with a small number of passionate women can change the world.”
Melanie Sturgeon
Watching the stream from Gilbert with co-chair Connie Robinson, Melanie sent word through Lucy: bravo to all the wonderful work over the past fifty years — and a reminder that the 2026 induction is October 19 in Scottsdale at the Western Spirit museum.
“Bravo to all the wonderful work you've done over the past fifty years — especially honored that Alison and others founded the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame.”
Paula Cullison
An Italian-born immigrant who moved from New York and realized Arizona had no formal kindergarten program — so she helped organize one. Her message to the room: 'Kudos to the organizers. Keep up the good work. Sending love from Phoenix.'
“Kudos to the organizers. Keep up the good work. Sending love from Phoenix.”
Daisy Jenkins
Daisy opened with the story of putting her hands on her hips at Raytheon until a first-time candidate named Gabby Giffords got her plant walk-through. Then, as 'a young 78-year-old' with a long view, she delivered the night's hardest warning: Black women's unemployment climbed from 5.4% to 7.3% during 2025, driven by intentional public-sector losses — and behind every percentage is a woman with a mortgage who did everything she was told to do. Her refusal to stand quietly while doors close drew the loudest response of the night.
“When I talk about women's equality, it isn't an abstract concept for me, because I know what inequality looks like — I've lived it. I also know what progress looks like, because I witnessed it. But today, I want to offer a caution. Progress, we've learned, is not permanent.”
“Behind all of these percentages, there is a woman. A woman with a mortgage, a woman putting children through school, a woman helping aging parents, a woman trying to save for retirement — a woman who did everything they told her to do: get educated, work hard, show up, perform, contribute — and suddenly finds that the opportunity she worked so hard to obtain is disappearing.”
“I have lived long enough to remember when the doors were closed. I have been blessed to walk through the doors that generations of women before me fought to open. And I refuse — absolutely, unequivocally refuse — to stand quietly while those doors begin to close for the women coming behind me.”
“If I would be blessed with a voice, then I have an obligation to use it — especially when the voices of other women are being diminished. And so do all of us. We must vote. We must advocate. And when we see inequity, we must have the courage to name it and call it out.”
“Equality isn't something one generation wins and then every generation thereafter simply inherits. Every generation must protect it. The doors that were open for us must remain open for those behind us — and when it's necessary, we must stand in that dadgum doorway.”
Alison Hughes
Wearing a sash from Sheila Tobias and channeling Gloria Steinem — 'this is what 86 looks like' — the Commission's first Executive Director named the women who drafted the original ordinance and the ones now gone, then read the receipts from the first decade: hundreds of Title VII discrimination complaints filed, women organized into the trades, the Hispanic Women's Conference, the Black Women's Awareness Task Force, public hearings on violence against women, a women's resource directory, and artwork painted inside the county jail's women's cells. From 59-cent buttons then to 81 cents now. She closed with Shirley Chisholm's folding chair.
“Gloria was famous at age fifty — when women were old. Gloria said, 'Well, this is what fifty looks like.' And today I'm proud to say: this is what eighty-six looks like.”
“Before the commission formed, we were wearing large buttons on our clothing that said 59¢ — that's fifty-nine cents for every dollar a man earned. Today, we're earning eighty-one to eighty-two cents for every dollar earned by a man. So we are still not there yet.”
“We started to take discrimination complaints with women and file them through Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. We would hold workshops for women on how to file discrimination complaints. Women would just be lined up. We did hundreds of them.”
“We decided that we would check out women in the county jail and what their circumstances were. And we managed to wangle our way into the jail. We got the women artists organized and we got them into the jail, and they painted beautiful paintings in the women's cells.”
“There's a lot to do, sisters and young friends. Shirley Chisholm — the first Black woman to serve in the United States Congress — said: if they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. Congratulations to you all. You will no longer need to bring folding chairs to the table.”
“Commissioner Lucy Howell, a creative force like I have never known, reminded me that my job today is to look back in order to look forward.”
“I Am an Ambitious Woman”
Lucy found a poem Alison wrote for a Harvard Kennedy School address and turned her words into a song — 'I am an ambitious woman… ambitious for my sisters, my brothers, my country… to work for a world of tomorrow that is better than the world of today.' The room heard one version; sixteen genres will roll out through the celebration year.
📜 Full lyrics — “I Am an Ambitious Woman” (Words by Alison M. Hughes — sung at the 50th Anniversary broadcast)
Verse 1
I am an ambitious womanI have a strong will to succeed
I am not ambitious for power
Or for wealth
I am ambitious for success
Verse 2
I am an ambitious womanI am determined to achieve
The possible
And the impossible
I will stand up for what I believe
In the name of justice
Verse 3
I am an ambitious womanI take seriously the work begun on America
I hold dear the truth
Declared self evident
That all men are created equal, but
Verse 4
I am an ambitious womanI aspire to complete the work on America
To write its song unsung
Its symphony as yet undone
Verse 5
I am an ambitious womanAn immigrant among immigrants
I aspire to make America perfect
To contribute to the balance
Now in the hands of men
To add the force of women
To the country’s journey
Into the future.
Verse 6
I am an ambitious womanI am ambitious for my self
I am ambitious for my sisters
I am ambitious for my brothers
I am ambitious for my country
I am ambitious for the world
Coda
I want to use my ambitionTo work for a world
Of tomorrow
That is better
Than the world of today
“I am an ambitious woman. I have a strong will. I am not ambitious for power or for wealth. I am ambitious for success… I am ambitious for my sisters, for my brothers, for my country. I want to use my ambition to work for a world of tomorrow that is better than the world of today.”
Treasurer Molly Ring made the ask: give tonight or anytime — QR codes, envelopes, or pctwc.org — because every dollar goes directly to connecting people to resources, empowering women and girls, and advocating with local elected representatives. She invited everyone to visit the Commission's historic adobe at 240 N. Court and to come to a monthly meeting, which are open to the public.
“Our vision is a Tucson and Pima County where every woman and girl has the safety, opportunity and empowerment that she deserves — for herself, her family, and her community.”
“Every dollar that you give goes directly to support the hard work that we are doing to connect people to resources, empower women and girls in our community, and advocate for them with our local elected representatives.”
“You can join us for one of our monthly meetings. They're open to the public. So you're welcome to join. We hope to see you there.”
The poll lives on
The three questions we asked the room on August 26 now run for the whole celebration year. Answer once — results below are live, real responses only (never demo data).
Over the last 50 years, how much real progress have you seen for women and girls in Pima County?
Which of our six focus areas needs the MOST attention in the next five years?
How likely are you to step up — apply for a seat, join a committee, volunteer, or sponsor?
Responses are anonymous unless you leave your name. Live count: … · Also available as a standalone page: /pctwc-50th-program/poll/
The ask — Know your history. Use your voice. Get involved.
The 50th is a year-long celebration, and tonight was day one.
📖 Read the full broadcast — cleaned, timestamped transcript
⚠ Note: from about 37:15–43:05 the live captions gap and the stream video degrades for ~6 minutes (a technical glitch during the data presentation). Nothing is edited out — the transcript resumes where the captions resume.
0:00 Welcome to a special broadcast on Women's Equality Day coming to you live from Tucson, Arizona to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Pima County Tucson Women's Commission in partnership with the City of Tucson, Pima County, the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame, Tucson City of Gastronomy, and the YWCA of Southern Arizona.
0:22 Tonight's broadcast, powered by the Force for Health Network, features reflections from our public leaders, a jointly read proclamation from both Pima County Supervisor Chair Jen Allen and City of Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, special comments from our and a challenge to you, to know your history, to understand the true power of your voice,
0:48 and to use it with conviction at the ballot box and beyond. Our hope is simple, that everyone watching finds a way to get more involved. If you're joining us live from Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube, play along, add your comments, and be part of this special evening.
1:04 And now, without further ado, please welcome our host, Pima County Tucson Women's Commission Chair, Kimberly Fitch, to help kick us off. Welcome to the Pena County Tucson Women's Commission's fiftieth anniversary celebration.
1:36 My name is Kim Fitch and I am the chair of the Pena County Tucson Women's Commission. Thank you so much for joining us this evening. Before we begin, We would like to honor the tribal nations who have served as caretakers of this land from time immemorial and respectfully acknowledge the ancestral homelands of the Tohono O'odham Nation and the multi-millennial presence of the Pasco
2:03 Docky Tribe within Pima County. Tonight, in addition to our special guests, we are joined by a number of elected officials, including a representative from City Councilmember Paul Cunningham's office, City Councilmember Celina Barajas, Celina Valenzuela from the Office of the Governor Katie Hobbs,
2:29 and Nathan McCall from the Office of Supervisor Rex Scott. Thank you very much. We would also like to recognize our current Pima County Tucson Women's Commission Commissioners, please stand and wave, or whatever if you're already standing, because I see most of you are already standing.
2:53 Hany Aquino, Maureen Grusin, Maria Valle Jardines, Zoe Diesman, Melinda Gomez, Lucy Howell, Anna Marufo, Stephanie Noriega, Molly Ring, Ashley Rubin, Annie Sykes, Dana Taylor, Roberta Vance, Joyce Wong, and Sierra Yamanaka.
3:17 Thank you. If there are any former Pima County Tucson Commissioners here, could you please stand and be recognized? Thank you so much.
3:44 Tonight, we have the incredible fortune of looking back at the past fifty years of achievement, not only for this commission, but for women and girls in Tucson and Pima County. A lot has changed since nineteen seventy-six, when a group of women dedicated themselves to improving our community.
4:03 Since then, well, we'll just have to wait for that later in the So I would like to introduce our first guest, who is our special guest. We have an incredibly special surprise guest to celebrate with us this evening.
4:21 She has served in the Arizona House of Representatives and went on to serve as a representative for Arizona's eighth congressional district. She is now a gun safety advocate and a beloved member of the Tucson community.
4:37 Please join me. in welcoming Congresswoman Gabby Gibbons. days of pain and uncertain recovery.
5:23 But confronted by this perhaps little hope, confronted by paralysis and aphasia, I respond with great indignation. I put one foot in for the other. I found one word, and then I put another.
5:39 My recovery is daily fight, but fighting makes me stronger. Words once pained easily. Today, I struggle to speak, but I'm not losing my voice. America needs all of us to speak out, even when you have to fight to find the words.
5:57 I'm also in a second fight, the fight to stop gun violence. We are at a crossroads. We live shooting in you or we can act.
6:15 We can protect our families. the future, we can vote, we can be on the right to history. Please join us in this fight. Thank you very much. our next speaker represents district three
7:06 on the peanut county board of supervisors serving as chair of the board of supervisors she also is the only woman currently serving so please welcome supervisor jen allen Thank you for the opportunity to be here.
7:32 Women's Equality Day is celebrated annually on August twenty-sixth to commemorate the ratification of the nineteenth amendment in nineteen twenty, guaranteeing women the right to vote. But let's be clear, women were not handed that right.
7:48 They fought for it. For decades they organized, marched, went to jail, held hunger strikes, lobbied elected officials, and refused to be silenced. They were mocked, dismissed, threatened, and told to sit down and be quiet. They refused.
8:04 That history reminds us that changing the status quo requires organizing, persistence, and often agitation. Rights are not simply given. Progress is, unfortunately, not inevitable. And when people challenge those in power, the people in power often push back.
8:22 However, here we are, a hundred and six years later. Women make up more than half the population, but we are still fighting for our fair share of decision-making and power in corporate meetings, in legislative chambers, in courtrooms, in the White House, and in places where decisions are made about our lives.
8:41 Right now, reproductive health care is being gutted. Civil rights are being rolled back. Efforts to advance racial justice and gender equality are unraveled. One of the clearest ways to see how far we still have to go is to look at pay equity. Today, women earn on average about eighty-five cents for every dollar earned by men.
8:59 But averages can hide the full story. For black women, that drops to sixty-five cents. For Latinas and Native American women, it falls even further to fifty-eight cents. And it's not just about pay. It means fewer benefits, harsher work environments, fewer opportunities for advancement, greater vulnerability for layoffs and firings, and much more.
9:21 When you add it up, the cost is staggering. In twenty twenty three, black women lost forty two point seven billion dollars in wages compared with white women. Latinas lost fifty three point three percent or billion.
9:38 Imagine what those dollars could have meant for our families, our neighborhoods, our communities, if they had remained in our hands. Less food and housing insecurity, better educational outcomes. healthier families, stronger communities, that is what economic justice can mean for us.
9:58 We cannot achieve true prosperity unless and until we address the disparities driven by gender discrimination. As the wise Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, women belong in all places where decisions are being made.
10:13 I challenge myself to do that. I ran for office and am now lucky to be on the Board of Supervisors. I am not only the only Latina, but as noted, I am the only woman. And I am here with my friend, our mayor, who is also the first woman and first Latina to hold her position in the more than two hundred year history.
10:45 It is how we change who gets heard, whose experiences matter, and whose interests are considered when decisions are made. Every one of us should find the place we care about and become a decision maker.
11:00 We run for office, serve on boards, join a commission, lead an organization, speak up, step forward, vote. And I'll close with the words of another extraordinary woman, leader, and entrepreneur, Dolly Parton, who we sat and just watched. When a girl didn't have anyone to stand up for her, that girl had to stand up for her own damn self.
11:23 Stand up for yourself, stand up for the women beside you, and stand up for the women and girls who are coming after us. And congratulations to the Pima Tucson Women's Commission for this fiftieth year celebration. We thank all the hardworking women, organizers, agitators, educators, leaders, and advocates who put their time, energy, and brilliance into the last fifty years.
11:45 make it possible for us to be here celebrating this anniversary with you tonight thank you thank you our next guest has served as the city of tucson for over a decade first as a city council member and now as our mayor she is a tireless advocate for working families
12:13 and immigrant communities and women's economic opportunity throughout her time in office. I would now like to bring up Tucson Mayor Regina Romero for a special presentation of a joint proclamation.
12:39 Will the commissioners please join me? Buenas tardes. How's everyone doing? Commissioners, come join us. Current commissioners, please turn.
12:54 Because then everyone will join us. All the commissioners. Thank you so much. We have a Pima County proclamation as well as the city of Tucson proclamation. And I'd like to um, recognize on behalf of the city of Tucson and the office of the mayor, um, celebrating this fiftieth anniversary of
13:21 the Pima County Tucson Women's Commission. So, um, whereas Women's Equality Day observed annually on August twenty sixth commemorates the certification of the nineteenth amendment to the United States Constitution recognizing women's rights to vote and Whereas, following a year of advocacy by community
13:47 women, the Tucson City Council and the King County Board of Supervisors established the Tucson Women's Commission on December eighth, nineteen seventy-five, charging them with the mission to expose, eliminate, and prevent discrimination against women and to assist women in attaining full equality of opportunity in all aspects of life, holding its first meeting in the spring of nineteen seventy-six.
14:09 And whereas in nineteen ninety two, the city of Tucson and Pima County expanded the commission into the joint Pima County Tucson Women's Commission, creating a lasting partnership dedicated to advancing equity for women across the region.
14:27 And whereas for fifty years, the PCTWC has served as a trusted advisor to local government, championing policies and initiatives that elevate the voices of women and girls and address the issues facing them the most. And whereas Commission continues to envision a Tucson and Pima County where every woman and girl has the safety, opportunity, and empowerment she deserves for herself,
14:52 her family, and her community, and works collaboratively with community partners to make that vision a reality and, Whereas, the fiftieth anniversary of PCTWC provides an opportunity to celebrate the progress achieved through decades of leadership, advocacy, and public service while recognizing that the work of advancing equality remains unfinished.
15:17 Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that I, the Mayor of the City of Tucson, Regina Romero, the Tucson City Council, and the Pima County Board of Supervisors do hereby recognize August twenty-sixth, twenty-twenty-sixth as Women's Equality Day and proudly celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Pima County Tucson
15:45 Women's Commission, honoring its enduring legacy of service and reaffirming their commitment to ensuring that every woman and girl in our community has the opportunity to thrive. Witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and the City of Tucson, Arizona to be affixed this twenty-sixth day of August, twenty-twenty-six.
16:09 Congratulations. Can I ask the lady there in the
16:54 front row to maybe move? Yeah, couldn't you just just for a second? Thank you. Quality alright. All right.
17:38 And Mayor Romero, would you please come up and say a few words? Of course. Muchas gracias. Buenas tardes, everyone. It's an honor for me to celebrate Women's Equality Day surrounded by incredible leaders.
17:55 I was so happy to get here and see so many amazing women that have meant so much for our community. that not only have served as commissioners to the Pima County Tucson Women's Commission, but have done so much for our community in so many different ways.
18:16 There's way too many of you for me to mention individually, but I want to thank you for being a role model to me and so many others. I want to thank you for opening the door to people like myself, where we have a responsibility as leaders, those of you that have opened the door for us,
18:42 we have a responsibility to kick that door wide open for the younger generations that are coming after us. And it is my personal privilege to work with young women in our community, to offer them the opportunities to experience both campaign work as well as
19:09 City of Tucson work through my office. So I want to especially thank and recognize Congresswoman Gabby Giffords for her incredible, courageous leadership. and her public service, Pima County Supervisor Jen Allen for being here and for incredible leadership at the Board of Supervisors.
19:32 And then of course, a special thank you to Chairperson Kimberly Fitch for her leadership in the commission. Thank you so much for carrying this work forward. I also want to recognize everyone, again, who has served in the commission As a commissioner, we appreciate the fifty year legacy that this commission has in our community and
20:02 this legacy belongs to each and every one of you. Thank you again profoundly. Fifty years ago, women in our community came together and advocated for a voice in local government to address the issues facing women and girls.
20:18 For fifty years, the commission has been made up of women who continue to show up, speak up, and push our governments to do better. And women know how to get things done.
20:33 Right? We know how to get things done. We don't need permission. We see a need, we organize, we advocate, and we find a way forward. For fifty years, this commission has turned advocacy into action.
20:51 That's why our commissions matter in the city of Tucson. They bring residents into the policymaking process, giving them a seat at the table and a voice in shaping the policies that affect their lives. And having women at the table matters.
21:10 Representation matters. I also think there's something especially powerful about the joint leadership of the city of Tucson and Pima County here. we recognize that issues that women and girls face don't stop at jurisdictional boundaries.
21:29 Affordable housing, economic opportunity, child care, transportation, public safety, and access to resources require us to work across levels of government and across our community.
21:45 And we see that shared vision and the work we are doing together through the Prosperity Initiative. recognizing that the challenges facing women and families are connected, and so are the solutions.
22:00 The City of Tucson Mayor and Council and the Pima County Board of Supervisors together passed the Prosperity Initiative. Our work is creating more than one thousand two hundred new units of affordable housing for seniors, single parents and working families, creating access to housing that they can afford.
22:22 In the city of Tucson, our Kidco program provides working families a safe and affordable place for their school-aged children to go after school and during summer breaks with homework help and enriching activities.
22:38 In our violence interruption and vitalization action sites at the city of Tucson, we are connecting young people to jobs, mentorship, and giving them the tool to make their community safer. And through our small business program at the city, our navigators are reaching women who own small and micro businesses who have been left out of traditional systems and helping them access technical assistance,
23:05 coaching, and other resources to grow their business. This is what putting policy into action supporting women and families looks like. And our work is far from over. We have to continue asking whether every woman and girl in our community has the safety, opportunity, and ability to thrive.
23:30 So today we celebrate the women who built this legacy, the women leading today, and the women who will carry this work forward for the next fifty years. Because as we all know, the work never stops.
23:47 The work never stops. And we're so much stronger when we're doing this work together. So muchisimas gracias a todas las mujeres que son bilingues, que son de habla hispana.
24:04 Les doy las felicidades por todo el trabajo que se está haciendo para representar a mujeres en nuestra ciudad y en nuestro condado. Happy Women's Equality Day and as we heard from Supervisor Allen, There's so much work to be done.
24:21 We need to make sure that we're fighting this fight together so that all of the inequities that she talked about, we continue to work and make sure that we are pushing those doors open for the next generations.
24:39 Felicidades, congratulations for the next years. Okay, thank you so much, Mayor Romero.
25:03 Tucson is proud to be a UNESCO city of gastronomy, and tonight we're honored to have three of our city's own chef ambassadors with us. Please join me.
25:25 Please join me in welcoming Angela Garcia, Shuka Parker, and the Gourmet Girls up to the stage, up to the microphone to say a few words. Hello, everyone.
25:44 Thank you, everyone, for including us in this. We're all very happy to be here. I am a first-generation Chicana, woman-owned business, so I'm very, very happy to be here. I also believe food is political. So we fight the same fight through our food.
26:01 Everything that I do is a reflection of where I come from. And I honor the heritage of where I come from, which is Mexican. So thank you very much for having us here. I'm a private chef in town. I offer meal-prepping services, and I also do in-home parties and stuff like that.
26:20 But that's me. Thank you again for having me here. We are the Gourmet Girls.
26:37 I'm Susan Fulton, and my business partner and best friend, Mary Steiger. We are totally honored to be here tonight to be celebrating this fifty years.
26:53 It's a real milestone, and it's a pleasure to be part of it. We're also so honored to be ambassador chefs for the Tucson City of Gastronomy. We just can't say how important this is that we bring our food to the world.
27:09 We show them what we have done with all our heritage foods, what we can do to move forward creating dishes with these foods that other people in the world may not know about. So that is a huge honor for us. And speaking for myself, I came from a family that lived and breathed and ate food twenty-four hours a day.
27:29 So it is a pleasure to be part of the culinary community and to be a woman business owner and a woman chef. So thank you.
27:45 I just want to say that it's an honor to be here and to be celebrating with you. Susan said it all and we're just glad to be here. I'm always the one that talks. Hello, my name is Shuka Parker.
28:03 I'm from Japan. I started to my business almost three years ago. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you. Can you guys separate for a moment?
28:41 Here we go. Here we go. Thank you. And then we'll get to the end. I see there's some over there. OK. Thank you so much. Let's see, where am I? Next, I would like to bring up Pima County Administrator Jan Lesher.
29:04 Jan served as a PCTWC commissioner in the commission's early days and has dedicated her career to public service here in Pima County. Please welcome Jan Lesher.
29:23 Thank you all so much. This is just a glorious moment. Thank you. all for being here. I think so many of us were bouncing around earlier and remembering when we met each other. And it was, I think Allison Hughes taught me how to, remember when you could lift like thirty envelopes at once when you were doing all those great fails and all those incredible things you did.
29:43 And so we all have been in Can Beats together for decades. I joined the Tucson Women's Commission, Tucson, it was just, sorry, I think it was just the Tucson Women's Commission in those days, in So I've been spending some time thinking about where we were in nineteen eighty four and what that looked like and trying to think about the remarkable progress over this four decades.
30:07 But really, we need a moment to understand where we've been so that we can really appreciate just how far we have come and really fully realize, you know, the extraordinary efforts that have been made. You're hearing a lot of the same words tonight, but I think we can't say enough remembering where we've been.
30:23 We were already making our mark maybe in nineteen eighty four, but expectations on women then we're just we're still really very different. A woman was expected to quit family before our career. Our workplaces were dominated by men and leadership positions were much less accessible.
30:43 As you've been hearing before, we were paid much less than men and pregnancy affected whether or not we even got to stay at our jobs for many of us. And although women gained important legal rights by nineteen eighty-four, equality on paper just did not mean equality in our everyday life.
31:00 So I want us to think about how much has changed. As you've heard since then, we've got women who are CEOs, we've got leaders in government, astronauts, engineers, surgeons, and so much more. And we have access to education and careers And there's a much broader understanding of what a woman does not have to choose between any longer.
31:22 A woman does not have to choose between being educated and being a wife. And it's not that many years ago when that was the case. We have conversations today that were much less common in nineteen eighty four. We've always been talking about equal pay. That's been around for decades.
31:38 But now, at least today, we are openly talking about workplace harassment, representation, parental responsibilities. reproductive choices, and the importance of women having a decision-making voice that affects our lives.
31:53 But let's not confuse progress with perfection. Women today still face many challenges. Gender discrimination has not disappeared, and we are still judged by standards that men are simply not held to. Many women today continue to carry a disproportionate share of the homework while we're also working in jobs.
32:15 How many of you are going home tonight to still do all of those chores tonight? Women have a far more freedom when we decide what kind of life we want to build. But remember that that freedom was not handed to us. It was earned.
32:30 It was earned by all of you. It was earned by mothers who insisted that their daughters have opportunities that they never had. By teachers who encouraged girls to pursue subjects that they'd been told were just for the boys, by women who entered the boardrooms when no one expected to see them, by women who ran for office, the most courage on the planet to me, by the way, women who were willing to put their names
32:56 out there on the ballot, women who demanded change, equal treatment, who challenged discriminatory laws, who organized and refused to accept that that's just the way things are. But we still face barriers.
33:10 We do not. all experience progress in the same way, as has been noted. Race, economic circumstances, disability, geography, and so many other factors still impact the opportunities available to women. So when we celebrate the progress of the last fifty years, there's a little temptation to think the work is finished, but as we all know, it is not.
33:36 So tonight, let us celebrate not just how far we have come, but the courage and the determination and the persistence that brought us here tonight. Let us honor the women who opened the doors before us. Let us honor the many women who walked through them.
33:52 And let us honor the women who are still coming up and building those doors behind us. So congratulations on fifty years. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jen.
34:12 Next, I'd like to welcome Commissioner Stephanie Noriega to share a special look back at the women's progress in Tucson over the past fifty years. Good evening, everyone.
34:26 Thank you. And happy Women's Equality Day, as you've all noted. For fifteen years, the Pima County Tucson Women's Commission has asked one question. How are the women in this county actually doing?
34:43 Tonight, we answer that question with data. And every number you'll see is measured against Arizona, against the nation, and against our fourteen other counties in the state. Because a number by itself means nothing, a number in context tells the truth.
35:03 So, who are we? All right, so we're going to go by each one of these pillars that we have come up with.
35:24 All right, so this is every county in Arizona over fifty years. That bold line is us over to the far right. We have tripled in size since nineteen seventy six and we don't look like the rest of Arizona.
35:41 Who are we? So more than a third of us are Hispanic or Latina, well above the US, and we're also older. Nearly one in four residents is sixty-five plus, far more than Arizona or the country.
35:56 A commission for these women has to plan for both ends of that spectrum. Let's start where it hits the hardest, the wallet. Nationally, women went from fifty-nine cents to the dollar to eighty-one.
36:14 Real progress. Among Arizona's fifteen counties, our median income ranks fifth. And against our peer mentors, Phoenix, Houston, Chicago, Nashville, Oakland, Manhattan, we are the lowest income of them all.
36:32 Our gap isn't only gender, it's regional. the brightest spot we have, right? So we wanna make sure that we don't look at this data and think it's all bad because we do have, we are doing some really great things here in Arizona and in Pima County in particular.
36:47 So, all right. Women are now, Thank you.
37:15 Thank you. Okay.
43:05 We have a full report that you can find on our website. This is all of the information, the data points that we are working as a commission to tackle. I know we talked about some hard truths tonight and we gave some data that was quite appalling, but we are all standing here tonight and together because we believe that we have the power to make the progress, right?
43:27 Over and over again, it's about progress, not perfection. And we're here, we stand with each other to get the work done. thank you all for coming tonight and supporting us and again full report will be found on our website thank you thank you we know that's a lot of information our website is pctwc.org and you can just slide down to the information so okay
43:56 thank you so much stephanie and the committee for all of this information we know is a bit of an information overload but There's so much important information. So now we're gonna switch things up a bit. Let me welcome Commissioner Lucy Howell for some trivia and giveaways.
44:22 Okay, first of all, can you hear me? I am not wearing ASU colors, okay? I've already been accused of that. This is gold and silver. I mean, it's purple and gold, suffragist official colors, okay?
44:37 And I'm going to try and do this. Okay, let's go ahead and, okay, so on your pamphlet, on the palm card here, there is a QR code. And I'm curious if, go ahead and forward that to the next one.
44:56 And Lucy, check and see if the mic is on. Yeah, it is. test test test i'm really loud you i don't need a mic we can hear you test test test a little bit better okay got it um if you want to um we're gonna see if we can get some
45:22 live feedback here um there's a qr code there there's also a qr code at the bottom of the palm card notice that the proclamation was on the back too which is wonderful And there's just three quick questions if you wanted to participate. Look back.
45:39 Over the last fifty years, how much real progress have you seen for women and girls in Pima County? It's just a score of one to five. Throw it up there. If you don't do it today, this is marking the first day of the celebration year of the fiftieth.
45:54 So we're going to be collecting a lot of information. Number two is looking forward. Which of our six focus areas needs the most attention in the next five years? And they will be listed there. And number three, step up. If you'd like to step up, volunteer, come to a meeting, donate, support, however, go ahead and answer those.
46:13 And we'll go ahead and show you some results if you're participating. But for the fun part, we wanted to see who's paying attention here. So Steph, go ahead and pop to the next question. Okay, so we have t-shirts and mugs. Where's my t-shirt and mug lady?
46:28 Come on over here. Who's ever t-shirt and mug commissioner? Responsible? Come on up. Grab a t-shirt. Okay, first question. The first person that answers this question wins a commemorative t-shirt or a mug. Ready? In what year was the Tucson Women's Commission established?
46:45 Right there. Right there. Classes, yep. Ah, A. No. Nineteen seventy-five. Correct. Yes. Now you might be thinking it's two thousand twenty-six. Nineteen seventy-six.
47:00 Fifty years. Our first meeting. was in two thousand twenty six, but we were actually approved as a full commission in December of nineteen seventy five. Little trick question there. OK, you guys ready for the next one? And where's my photographer?
47:15 I'd love to get a photographer picture of the winners with their T-shirt or mug. So you're going to have to run around like a record. OK, number two. How many years did the commission operate?
47:29 I guess I could read this out of the two North Court Avenue before it was given title. Did you guys know that we actually own that building? So how many years did the commission operate out of two forty? Okay, Carolyn.
47:46 Sixteen, correct. Get a t-shirt or a mug. Awesome. Former commissioner there. Hello. What year did you serve, Carolyn? Okay, that's okay. That is fine.
48:01 Okay. Sixteen years. We were handed the keys in nineteen eighty four and then handed the deed in two thousand. So that was wonderful. Okay. In what year did Pima County adopt the commission becoming one of the nation's few jointly serving city and county commission?
48:22 Yes. Right there. B, nineteen ninety-two, correct. Awesome. You guys have been listening. That's awesome. I believe the last one I checked, San Francisco was the only city and county ran Pima Women's Commission.
48:43 I'd have to go check on that, but that's pretty good, right? Pima County and Allison Hughes, big part of that. Okay, last one. A little selfish here. Which girls' empowerment program was actually launched right here at the Pima County Tucson Women's Commission?
48:59 Dana, it doesn't count. Yes, you. My Girl Power. My Girl Power, yay! It started as a committee with Martha McSally. We raised money. They started as our fiscal sponsor.
49:13 We raised money and we took girls to New York and DC to celebrate women. who have left their marks on science, civics, and history, and we are looking forward to activating that again. So, awesome. Okay, let's keep going.
49:29 October twelfth, two thousand thirteen was the first public meeting, by the way. Okay. So, the room has spoken. I guess nobody's coming in here, but we will go ahead and share some of that later. It could be a technical glitch. Okay, we'll go ahead and show that later.
49:45 Okay, so now we get to go ahead and transition into, now I've got Melanie Sturgeon, who's actually watching right now. I am serving as a liaison for the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame. I was introduced to them by some common friends, Jane Rosenbaum, who knew Alison Hughes.
50:07 Alison Hughes recruited me into the Pima County Tucson Women's Commission. Alison Hughes was also very instrumental in founding the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame. So it is my honor that I actually nominated her this past year, and she is being inducted into something that she actually helped start.
50:25 So it's such a full circle for me. I've got Melanie back here watching, and she is the executive director. She's actually co-chair with Connie Robinson this year, and she's watching.
50:39 She says bravo to all the wonderful work you've done over the past fifty years. especially honored that Allison and others have founded the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame. And so she's watching from Gilbert tonight. Now, you can see on there that the official induction ceremony will be October.
50:55 Nineteen in Scottsdale at the Western Spirit Museum. So it's usually at the Heritage Museum. They're going over some construction. And so it's a wonderful event. I took an intern there three years ago. I went again and I cried.
51:11 It is amazing to honor women who don't expect it, right? And so I'm just very thrilled to be here. Now, just for those that don't know, oops, go ahead and forward. This is a quick timeline.
51:26 It started in nineteen eighty. It went through about a decade. They were going through and honoring women in the past. Nineteen ninety one. They kind of had to take a break because it got pulled back a little bit. About a decade later, it got reactivated.
51:41 And you can see that in two thousand fifteen, it wasn't until two thousand fifteen that they started honoring contemporary inductees, which means that they are still living here. And so it brings us to today. So this is kind of fun.
51:57 There are five inductees this year into the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame. The very first one, May Hicks, is the Betsy Ross of Arizona. Right. And I'm not going to try and share screens.
52:11 Melanie, don't get mad at me that I'm going off script a little bit here. But May Hicks, Curtis Hill, was asked to create a flag for her husband's rifle club. And he gave her a little bit of direction.
52:27 The reds and the yellows of the Arizona flag, the blue is the foundation, and the copper star was, of course, speaking of the copper. And it stuck. So I love that I learned that's going through this process, that Mae Hicks Curtis Hill was the woman who sewed and designed our very first Arizona flag that we still use today, right?
52:52 Isn't that cool? Dr. Laurel Noblebanks Reid, our second legacy inductee, we're actually sitting in the conference center called the Dr. Laurel Noblebanks Reid Center for Equity.
53:10 And that was not planned, people, at all. This is how serendipity and laws of attraction work. So excited. She was a civic advocate. She was an educator. She was the first black director in the YWCA.
53:27 There are lots of videos about her, and we are looking forward to sharing more information about both of these rock stars. And you'll learn more if you can go ahead and go down to the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame. Okay, now our three contemporaries, Paula Collison is actually online here watching.
53:47 I'm going to bring her up. Kudos to the organizers. Keep up the good work. Sending love from Phoenix. Ciao. Paula Gian Greco Collison. She's an Italian-born immigrant. Her father was a New York press guy, very much into education.
54:05 She moved here from New York. She recognized that Arizona didn't have a formal kindergarten program, and she helped organize that. So it's like one person with a couple small number of passionate women can change the world.
54:20 It's crazy. So we look forward to learning more about Paula. Thank you so much for watching, Paula. We love you. And now we get to go into Daisy Jenkins, who's actually here today. Daisy Jenkins, thank you for being on the show. You are a legend. She's a retired Raytheon executive, has paved the way for so many women across the board.
54:45 I got to sit in her fireside chat a couple months ago and learn so much more. Author, rock star, advisor, come on up here and say a couple words. Good evening.
55:09 I have to say something about Gabby. So when Gabby first ran for office and at Raytheon, her opponent, the guys say, um, we're going to have him out here and walk him through the plant and so forth, you know, thousands of people votes and no Gabby.
55:34 So I approached one of the guys and say, excuse me, but is running. Well, you know, we really try to focus on the folks that we're pretty sure will win.
55:48 So I put my hands on my hips. And so she's coming out here. And got into the Grand Barber. We worked it out. And I tell you, When she won, all of the guys were running from me.
56:09 I was really struggling. I got to take my glasses off so I can see this. First of all, it really is a privilege to be with you and to celebrate Women's Equality Day.
56:30 And it's a day that invites us to recognize how far women have come, but also challenges us to be honest about how far we still have to go.
56:47 And at this stage in my life, as a young, seventy eight year old, I have the benefit of a rather long view. So when I talk about women's equality, it isn't an abstract concept for me because I know what inequality looks like because I've lived it.
57:13 I also know what progress looks like because I witnessed it. But today, I want to offer a caution. Progress, we've learned. is not permanent.
57:32 And right now, I am deeply concerned about what is happening economically to black women in America. During twenty twenty five, the employment rate for black women rose from five point four percent in January to seven point three percent in December.
57:55 By February of this year, the unemployment remained around seven percent. But black women's employment in twenty twenty five was driven by public sector losses, that unemployment, predominantly federal employment.
58:19 And it was intentional, y'all, very intentional. And black women's employment rate experienced one of the sharpest one year decline in twenty five years.
58:37 And black women, particularly college educated women and women working in the public sector, have experienced significant employment losses. And behind all of these percentages, there is a woman, a woman with a mortgage, a woman putting children through school, a woman helping aging parents, a woman trying to save for retirement,
59:06 a woman who did everything they told her to do, get educated, work hard, show up, perform, contribute, and suddenly finds that the opportunity she worked so hard to obtain is disappearing.
59:25 So for generations, public sector employment provided Black women an important pathway in Americans into America's middle class. Those jobs offered something that was denied from a federal government perspective elsewhere, and I can attest to that.
59:48 the opportunities, stability, benefits, and a chance to advance beyond based on our abilities. And those opportunities change families, they change neighborhoods, they change generations, and we should never casually surrender that progress.
1:00:11 I have lived long enough to remember when the doors were closed. I have been blessed to walk through the doors that generations of women before me fought to open. And I refuse, absolutely unequivocally refuse to stand quietly while those doors begin to close
1:00:37 for the women coming behind me. Yes. If I would be blessed with a voice, then I have an obligation to use it, especially when the voices of other women are being diminished.
1:01:00 And so do all of us. We must vote. We must advocate. And when we see inequity, we must have the courage to name it and call it out. Equality isn't something one generation wins and then every generation thereafter simply inherits.
1:01:24 Every generation must protect it. Women's Equality Day should certainly be a celebration. Don't get me wrong on that. But let it also be a reminder. The doors that were open for us must remain open for those behind us.
1:01:46 And you know what? When it's necessary, we must stand in that dadgum doorway and make certain Our next keynote is, again,
1:02:27 one of my personal mentees and sheroes, Ms. Allison Hughes. Please come up here to the stage so I can give you a one of those. One thing that I love about being on a commission is that it really is a citizen's opportunity to get involved in what would straddle to be a public and private and public space, right?
1:02:51 And so when I joined the commission at your back end recruitment year back in two thousand twelve, I learned how she facilitated with such grace and with such ease, because sometimes there can be some tension across the table.
1:03:05 Right. And so I owe so much to Alison and I am honored to introduce you as our keynote tonight, our two thousand twenty six Arizona Women's Hall of Fame inductee and the very first Executive Director of the Pima County Tucson Women's Commission, Ms.
1:03:21 Allison Peeks. Good evening. Can you hear me okay?
1:03:36 Yeah. All right. Congratulations, Pima County Tucson Women's Commission. Thank you. As we've heard from our supervisor here, that the US Constitution was adopted, giving us the right to vote.
1:03:55 To celebrate, I am wearing this sash that was given to me by my good friend Sheila Tobias. And so many of you here will remember Sheila. Sheila was one of the early organizers in New York with Gloria Steinem.
1:04:16 of the National Organization for Women. And I remember Gloria was famous at age fifty when women were old. Gloria said, well this is what fifty looks like. And today I'm proud to say this is what eighty-six looks like.
1:04:42 I want to recognize the women who built the foundation. for our Women's Commission, women who came before us and paved the way for our future. Before the adoption of the City of Tucson Ordinance, there was a small group of women gathered to draft it.
1:05:03 And one of those visionaries is with us today, Cecilia Cruz-Valdenegra. Cecilia. I remember who have now passed away and are deeply missed include Rosa Maria Diaz, who died this year, Ella Rumbling from the Tohono O'odham Nation, Dr. Kintu Riddle,
1:05:30 who was very active in organizing equality for lesbian women, Marsha Rockman, who also died quite young, Dr. Maureen Stewart, Debbie Weisenberg, who was very disabled, and invented the term differently abled women instead of disabled.
1:05:53 And Dr. Marlis Whitty, who was a physician at the medical college, one of the first women to be on the medical school faculty who faced discrimination and was out front about it. At the city level, the ordinance was drafted with these women by Phyllis Schubert.
1:06:15 who was an assistant city attorney. Ensuring the votes at the city council was a bit of a challenge. Yeah, to get the ordinance passed. First woman was Barbara Wyman.
1:06:31 And Barbara came up with the votes to get the ordinance passed. So we loved Barbara. She was right there with us. All right, I'm going to jump next to November of twenty nineteen.
1:06:48 That's when we got our first woman mayor. I remember fondly the evening the Women's Commission was meeting at two forty North Court when our honorable mayor just popped in to say hello.
1:07:09 Remember that? Yeah. We were very honored. So thank you for that. And at the Board of Supervisors level, when the city became a county commission, Sharon Bronson was the first woman to serve on the Board of Supervisors.
1:07:28 And Rory Halva were both really behind us at the Women's Commission. So thank you for keeping that family alive. Commissioner Lucy Howell, a creative force like I have never known.
1:07:53 She reminded me that my job today is to look back in order to look forward. So I'm going to take you back a bit further. Before the commission formed and we were wearing large buttons in our clothing that said, That's fifty-nine cents for every dollar a man earned.
1:08:14 You know, we had these huge buttons we were all wearing. Remember that, Jan? Yeah. In the mid-seventies, I'm sorry, I meant today, we're earning eighty-one to eighty-two cents for every dollar earned by a man.
1:08:31 So we are still not there yet. I googled that, by the way. I also Googled about what unionized women meant and earned.
1:08:48 It turns out women in the unions get ninety-four cents a dollar, so they're still not there yet. And I want to remind you, some of you commissioners, and some of them.
1:09:03 Cecilia Bendiola's here. Cecilia, you were on the first staff with me through the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act that got funding to the city and the county and gave us money for the commission. How I wish the commission helped.
1:09:22 I'm going to say, remind you about some of the things the Women's Commission was doing in those days. We started to take discrimination complaints with women.
1:09:37 and file them through Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Finally, we had Heather Sickworth working over in the Attorney General's office. And we would hold workshops for women on how to file discrimination complaints. Heather gave us forms, and women would just be lined up.
1:09:55 We'd make appointments with them, and we would help them write their complaints and get them filed to Heather Sickworth's office. We did hundreds of them. And we would report at the commission meetings how many discriminations complaints that we had filed. So that was one of the things they questioned.
1:10:12 We started organizing women in the trades. The unions weren't letting women in the trades. And we started organizing women in the trades. We did a big conference on how to enter the trades. And boy, women showed up.
1:10:27 They were strong. How to start your own small business. We worked on that because women weren't getting business loans from the SBA. So that was done. We organized the Hispanic Women's Conference at the state level.
1:10:43 We organized the affiliation of Native American women. That was Ella Rumley, who was a member of the OCTOM Nation and was on the first Women's Commission. We established the Black Women's Awareness Task Force.
1:10:57 Where's Annie Sykes? And Annie, she's still present, but I'm on the Black Women's Task Force, Annie. We were right there. Andy reminded me she was with the Young Women's, what was it, the Young Women's?
1:11:11 Young Women's Company. Young Women's Company. Women get into construction and stuff. Andy's been right there all this time. We held public hearings.
1:11:26 We did a public hearing on violence against women. That's written into the ordinance that public hearings can be held. We published a women's resource directory. We had a women's art exhibit.
1:11:42 And we decided that we would check out women in the county jail and what their circumstances were. And we managed to wangle our way into the jail. And you know what we did? We got the women artists that had done exhibits and helped us get artwork at the Women's Commission, we got them organized and we got them into the jail, and they painted beautiful paintings in
1:12:08 the women's cells. Isn't that marvelous? So there were a lot of action items, and that's where my memory takes me right now. I'm at eighty-six, you know, you can all hear so much.
1:12:24 It brings us to, but I want to bring us to the present time. The words today, diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI, right? The current zeitgeist, DEI adoption, DEI withdrawal at the executive level in the White House.
1:12:48 There's a lot to do, sisters and young friends. So I will close by giving you a quote by Shirley Chisholm, who was the first black woman to serve in the United States Congress. Shirley said, if they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.
1:13:09 Yes. Congratulations to you all. You will no longer need to bring folding chairs to the table. All right. Stay up here.
1:13:23 Stay up here, Elton. Hold on. Hold on. So when I was doing... We're getting to the close, right? And before we bring up our treasurer for the ask, we just want you to relax a little bit.
1:13:39 When I was doing some research on this wonderful, wonderful woman, I found a poem that she wrote. And she was asked to write a speech for a Harvard graduation, well, for the Kennedy School at Harvard. And when I found these words, I was so inspired.
1:13:57 And I had to turn them into a song. So we turned these lyrics into sixteen different genres that we will be sharing with you later throughout the year. But tonight, you're going to listen to my favorite version. And these are her words.
1:14:15 I just want you to relax. The lyrics, unfortunately, is a tech glitch. But just take it all in. These are Allison's words. I am an ambitious woman. I have a strong will. I am not ambitious for power or for wealth.
1:14:38 I am ambitious for success. I am an ambitious woman. I am determined to achieve the possible. I am an ambitious woman.
1:14:58 you have a strong will to succeed i am I am determined to hold dear the truth, to cleanse the impossible,
1:15:28 and afford to be the name object of a young and ambitious woman. I take seriously the word begun on America.
1:15:52 I hold dear the truth, declared self-evident that all men are created equal, but I aspire to complete the work on America To write it song on song, its symphony is yet undone I am an
1:16:24 ambitious woman, an immigrant among immigrants I aspire to make America perfect To contribute to the balance Now in the hands of men To add the force of women
1:16:52 To the country's journey into the future I am an ambitious man I am ambitious for myself I am ambitious for my sister I am ambitious for my brothers I am
1:17:21 ambitious for my country I am ambitious for I wanna use my ambition To work for a world of tomorrow That is better than the world of today I told you that that would be special,
1:18:04 right? That was written decades ago, and I feel like it is our anthem. So now that we got y'all mushy and gushy, let's go ahead and have our Peacock County Tucson Women's Commissioner, Chair, I mean not Chair, Treasurer, Molly Ring for a special hand.
1:18:33 All right, I'm full and mobile, so hopefully everybody can hear me. I'm Molly Ring. Like Lucy said, I'm the treasurer. I've been with the commission about two years. I am the treasurer, so this is why I'm up here.
1:18:50 So now it's time to look forward. In the last few years, our commission has done a lot to kind of reestablish what we can accomplish. Our vision is a Tucson and Pima County where every woman and girl as the safety opportunity and empowerment that she deserves both for herself and her family and for her community.
1:19:11 What you guys can do to help us reach that vision is donate here tonight or anytime. Every dollar that you give goes directly to support the hard work that we are doing to connect people to resources, empower women and girls in our community and advocate for them with our local elected representatives.
1:19:31 to those that have joined us tonight. So you guys can use the QR codes or give using the envelopes on the tables on your chairs, or you can always visit us on our website, pctwc.org. Please give.
1:19:47 As we said, we also have a building that you guys are all welcome to come and visit. It is a very old Adobe building, so it takes a little bit of upkeep. So that's really important, and it's a big part of our group as well. So lastly, I also want to let her know there's still a few open spots in the commission.
1:20:04 So if you have any interest, please reach out to one of us. Again, visit our website. Or you can join us for one of our monthly meetings. They're open to the public. So you're welcome to join. We hope to see you there. Thanks, everybody. And if you do have an envelope, you can look for me or any of the commissioners.
1:20:21 Make sure we don't lose those. And I'll welcome Kim up here for final closing remarks. Thank you. Tonight has been an incredibly special night for us celebrating our fiftieth years of the commission's history and the women is such an honor.
1:20:49 Sorry. We're surrounded by commissioners who are dedicated, diverse, talented, fierce, and so impressive. I am in awe of them. So please enjoy a little more food and drink.
1:21:10 And we very much appreciate you celebrating with us tonight. Thank you all for being here. And we look forward to shaking the next fifty years. And remember what your superpower is. You vote. That's your superpower. Thank you. That concludes our special Women's Equality Day broadcast celebrating fifty years of the Pima County Tucson Women's Commission.
1:21:36 We truly hope you enjoyed this special event as much as we did. Our thanks to the City of Tucson, Pima County, the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame, Tucson City of Gastronomy, the YWCA of Southern Arizona, the Force for Health Network, and to everyone else who has played their special part in making this happen with us.
1:21:56 Remember, our ask is this. Know your history, use your voice, and get involved. Connect and follow us on social, attend our public meetings, partner with us on ideas, and help support the next fifty years of protecting the rights and conditions of women and girls across Pima County.
1:22:17 You can reach us at pctwc.org. That's a wrap from Tucson. Now that we've reflected back, let's all move ahead and propel forward together.
1:22:32 Thank you.
Transcript is auto-generated from the live captions and lightly cleaned. Some names are spelled phonetically by the captioner; the speaker sections above use the correct spellings.