Thank goodness she didn’t get into medical school (discrimination) and then couldn’t get hired as a lawyer post law-school (she was a mother, God forbid!). If not for these stupid stereotypes, Patsy Mink wouldn’t have gone into politics to represent Hawai`i, and thus never would have been the trailblazer who co-authored Title IX 50-years ago, the law mandating equal treatment for men and women involved in federally-funded education programs. Simple, fair, powerful.
This week, Mink joins other noted pioneers in the U.S. Capitol hallway as her portrait is raised there. The first woman of color in Congress (1965), and thus, also, the first Asian American woman ever elected to Congress, Mink took career-altering (-shattering?) frustration and morphed it into greatness. Mink’s early-career, deflating experiences made her more committed, passionate, and focused.
Recently, Oklahoma’s near-complete domination of the Women’s College World Series softball tournament showcased Campbell High School’s Jocelyn Alo leading her Sooner team. She toyed with pitchers throughout the post-season, as the home run superstar has done consistently during her record-setting college career. Daily coverage on national sports wires and prime time TV coverage reinforced just how far women’s collegiate sports have come in the half-century since Patsy Mink and others fought for what’s right.
Check out the wonderful, local documentary, “Rise of the Wahine” to learn how Patsy Mink (alongside former UH Women’s Athletics Director, Dr. Donnis Thompson) changed the entire landscape of college sports. In the early 1970s, there was little acknowledgment of most women’s college athletics. By the 1990s, KHNL and KFVE locally were showcasing UH by televising more women’s collegiate sports events than any other TV/cable entity in America- volleyball, softball, basketball, soccer, and water polo. It was exciting, and what local viewers craved… a perfect personification of Paia Patsy’s powerful pursuit coming to fruition!
Patsy Mink fought to ban discrimination in education; she pushed for affordable child care, child development and bilingual education issues, according to USA TODAY. Honoring Mink with a portrait (an “about time” moment) helps put into perspective just how far we’ve come since Mink first went to D.C., and yet also reminds us out how far we still need to go in many areas that witnessed watershed identity politics moments in the early 1970s. As Rod Stewart once succinctly sang: “Every picture tells a story, don’t it?” The magical Mink memento now hanging in Washington, D.C. sure does.
Think about it…