Editorial: Past and future reflected in program on achievements by women

When Phillip Morris USA told women in a landmark cigarette advertising campaign that "you've come a long way, baby" in 1968, the closest 11-year-old Carol Sue Hutchins could hope to get to the thrill of organized athletic competition was to wear a cheerleader's uniform.

Not until Congress enacted Title IX legislation four years later ending gender discrimination in schools could she even begin to dream of feeling the flush of prep athletic glory, much less the satisfaction of a legendary 34-year coaching career in Division I college sports.

However far women had come to earn a claim on their own brand of cigarettes in 1968, they still had very far to go to lay claim to dreams of achievement in countless other realms of the American experience. To be sure, that distance has narrowed over the past 50 years, but you don't have to look very hard to see the gap still can be stubbornly wide.

Among Fortune 500 companies, just 24 CEOs are women, slightly fewer than 5 percent. In the U.S. House of Representatives, where 84 of 433 congressmen are women, the percentage reaches to just over 19 percent, and in the Senate it claws up to 23 percent. We may think we've arrived at an age of true gender parity, but progress often can feel more real than reality demonstrates.

That's one observation to consider as the inaugural "Empowering Girls for Life" convention arrives in Rosemont this weekend. The program, designed primarily to inspire girls from seven to 17 years old, will feature a rare concentration of women achievers, with two undeclared points of emphasis - one, that the accomplishments women have made in sports, business and culture in 2018 are relatively recent and decidedly hard-earned; and two, that the experiences and insights from today's role models will be instrumental in ensuring that these accomplishments continue to grow.

Hutchins, one of 37 speakers on the "Empowering Girls" slate, is a pertinent voice for the first statement. The head softball coach at the University of Michigan since 1985 and the winningest softball coach in NCAA history, Hutchins recalled how "we had to fight for everything we got," in a Sunday story by our Burt Constable.

And our Women's Watch columnist Patricia Babcock-McGraw described Saturday how, for many of today's successful women, the only role models were men. For Babcock-McGraw, who also will be featured among the speakers this weekend, it was basketball legend Magic Johnson. For Jennie Finch, one of the program's headliners and a star pitcher for the U.S. Olympic team and the Chicago Bandits, it was Dodgers great Orel Hershiser.

Obviously, achievement extends beyond the world of sports. Though the "Empowering Girls" program has a strong focus on athletics, it also extends into very different aspects of American society, including two winners of the "Shark Tank" television show for would-be entrepreneurs, a worldwide supply planner for Apple, a founder of the flying-car company Terrafugia, a Wells Fargo executive vice president, an award-winning PBS talk-show host and more.

Such a celebrated lineup does suggest that women have indeed come a long way beyond the long way they had come by 1968, but its more important function will be to help girls and young women of today get inspiration and direction to ensure that the next 50 years expand and solidify the role of women alongside men at the forefront of achievement in all aspects of American life.