How Women Paved the Way
It was a Rotary club in Duarte that challenged the status quo by admitting women into its club in 1977, despite rules that only male members were allowed.
This “violation” caused Rotary International to revoke the local club’s charter. In response, the club filed a lawsuit claiming Rotary should abide by California’s Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on race, gender, religion, or ethnic origin.
The Duarte club — which was later dubbed “the mouse that roared” — won the case, but Rotary International appealed. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 1987 that women must be allowed entrance into Rotary. It didn’t take long for things to change. By the end of that year, Sylvia Whitlock of the Rotary Club of Duarte became the first female Rotary club president.
“Service was what our club was interested in,” Whitlock said in a podcast on peacepodcast.org. “The more people who could perform service, the better.”
By 1990, 20,000 women had joined the club. By 2010, there were 195,000. And today, about 400,000 out of 1.4 million Rotary members worldwide are women.
or the most part, the women were welcomed by their male Rotarians. “When I joined, not only was I one of the youngest in the group of very few women, but here I was a young, corporate executive walking into a roomful of men,” said Parton Rosas, who joined the club in 1997 at the age of 30. “But they all just respected the heck out of me and were great mentors for me throughout the years.”
Her sentiments were echoed by Rotary International President-elect Stephanie Urchick, a Pennsylvania Rotarian who will soon oversee the club globally.
“My gender was never a barrier to taking on increasingly larger roles and responsibilities,” said Urchick, who will be the second woman ever to hold the position when she takes office in July. “Today, our clubs exist in many different formats and styles, and they’re working to mirror our communities in terms of gender, age, culture, socioeconomic status and so many different characteristics.”
Victoria Perez-Thacker, 30, is the president of the Palos Verdes Sunset Rotary Club and is the youngest of the South Bay Rotary leaders. She said it was the women who joined before her who gave her the confidence to step up to the role.
“There are definitely women trailblazers who paved the path,” said Perez-Thacker, who started Rotary in high school with the club’s youth-led iteration, called Interact, and continued the tradition in college. “With all the women presidents in the South Bay, it’s a little less of a closed door.”
In the group photo: The South Bay Rotary Club presidents, from left, Victoria Perez-Thacker, PV Sunset, Julia Parton, PV Peninsula, Lisa Hemmat, Manhattan Beach, Gilda Dyckman, El Segundo, and Leeann Robinson, Redondo Beach attend Happy Hour in honor of the International Day of Happiness at Playa Hermosa Restaurant in Hermosa Beach on Wednesday, March 20, 2024. Not pictured: Caroline Brady, San Pedro. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Rotary International President-elect Stephanie Urchick announced that the 2024-25 presidential theme is The Magic of Rotary and called on members to recognize and amplify the organization’s power to save lives.
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